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LIFE or SPURGEON 



CHARLES H. SPURGEON: 



HIS FAITH AND WORKS, 



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,«^*!/BY 



Hf'^^L/WAYLAND. 






PHILADELPHIA : 

AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 

1420 Chestnut Street. 



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Entered, according to Act of Congress, iu the year 1892, by the 

AMERICAN BAPTIST PUBLICATION SOCIETY, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington 



PREFACE. 



It is impossible to acknowledge in detail all the sources 
which have been drawn upon in the preparation of the 
following pages. Special mention should, however, be 
made of " Charles H. Spiirgeon ; His Life and Labors," by- 
Rev. George C. Needham, which is a reservoir of informa- 
tion as to the life of the great preacher. Acknowledgment 
should also be made of the courtesy of Mr. Ncedham and 
the publishers, Messrs. Bradley & Woodruff, who have 
allowed the use of several of the cuts contained in that 
volume. 

The book is born of love and of a desire to perpetuate 
and extend the knowledge and influence of the wonderful 
life that has just closed on earth, so that " he, being dead, 
may yet speak." It is humbly commended to the prayers 
of all who loved and honored that great-souled servant of 
God, Charles H. Spurgeon. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

Ancestry, Youth, Waterbeach, 7 

CHAPTER II. 
New Park Street, 35 

CHAPTER III. 
Metropolitan Tabernacle, 54 

CHAPTER IV. 
Mr. Spurgeon the Preacher. By Dr. Weston, . 71 

CHAPTER V. 
Spurgeon the Preacher (continued). By T. H. Pat- 

TISON, D. D., 83 

CHAPTER VI. 

The Preacher and the Congregation. By E. G. 
Robinson, d. d., 98 

CHAPTER VIT. 
Mr. Spurgeon as a Friend. By T. H. Pattison, d. d., 104 

CHAPTER VIII. 
Mr. Spurgeon as a Man. By Thomas Armitage, d. d , 116 

CHAPTER IX. 

The Pastors' College, 137 

6 



6 CONTENTS. 

CHAPTEE X. 

PA«E 

The Orphanage, , ... 159 

CHAPTER XI. 
Authorship, 176 

CHAPTER XII. 

Mr. Spurgeon as i Saw Him. By W. E. Hatcher, 

D. D., . . . . • 186 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Mr. Spurgeon 's Jubilee, 196 

CHAPTER XIV. 

Non-Conformity; the Denomination; "The Down 

Grade," . 207 

CHAPTER XV. 
Mr. Spurgeon at Home, 226 

CHAPTER XVI. 
The Burden of Life, 247 

CHAPTER XVII.. 
Yearnings of the Absent Pastor, 253 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Last Messages of Love. The End— Earth to 
Earth, 268 

CHAPTER XIX. 
Contemporary Judgments, 284 

APPENDIX. 
Sermon on Baptismal Regeneration, . . , , . 297 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 



CHAPTER I. 

ANCESTRY — YOUTH — WATERBEACH. 

ON Saturday afternoon, December 10, 1853, a lad of 
nineteen years came up to London from Cambridge 
by the Eastern Counties Railway, landed at the station not 
far from the Bank, and took an omnibus to the boarding 
house to which he had been directed, in Queen Square, 
Bloomsbury. He was ruddy cheeked, smooth of face, with 
a distinctly rural appearance, which was italicised by the 
black silk stock (now happily passed away) and by his large 
blue silk pocket handkerchief with white spots. It was his 
first visit to the city ; and no doubt from the top of the 
omnibus he gazed with curiosity at all the novel sights 
which lay along Cheapside, Newgate, and Holborn. 

If any one had predicted that the young rustic would 
begin on the next day a ministry of thirty-eight years in 
the metropolis of the civilized world, a ministry unsur- 
passed in the history of Christendom ; and that at last he 
would be borne to his grave with the burial of a king, 
the words would have seemed as idle tales, made of the 
same stuff as the wildest of the Arabian Nights. But time 
has a way all its own of ruining the reputations of prophets 
and of realizing what seemed but the fond dream of a 
feverish patient, 

7 



8 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

From what God had done we may safely judge as to what 
he meant to do.^ And we need not hesitate to believe that it 
w^as his purpose to raise up in this nineteenth century, in 
the heart of London, a Puritan preacher, a preacher to the 
people, who with unexcelled boldness and plainness and 
directness and tenderness and love should call men to God. 

Three things determine what a man shall be, or rather 
there are three things through which God determines what 
a man shall be, — his descent, his surroundings, and himself. 

As to descent, Spurgeon had an ancestry, than which the 
world has seen no better. His fathers, many generations 
gone by, had lived in the Loav Countries, whence in the 
sixteenth century they were driven out by the persecutions 
under the Duke of Alva and Philip II. — persecutions which 
were among the long series by which Spain impoverished 
herself and enriched her rivals. In the next century. Job 
Spurgeon was confined in Chelmsford jail thirteen weeks 
for conscience' sake. We may be well assured that there 
were men of the name and blood in the host Avhich followed 
to the field the greatest captain and the most righteous 
ruler that England ever saw. Very likely there was a 
Corporal Spurgeon, versed in Scripture, Avho, in the regi- 
mental prayer meeting, led the devotions of his less gifted 
colonel, and reproved a back-sliding major, and who later, 
after a hard-won victory, bleeding on the field, smiled as 
he saw Oliver with his whirlwind of Ironsides sweep by on 
the way to annihilate the Malignants and to achieve liberty 
and good government,"^ and then died happy. 

Of this lineage came Rev. James Spurgeon, who was 



i"What is election but God's purpose to do what he does do?"— Spurgeon ^ 
Sermon on Komans 8 : 28. 
2 We have drawn a little oa Macaulay and Kingsley. 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 9 

minister of the Independent Church in Stambourne, Essex, 
from 1810 until his death at the age of eighty-eight, in 
1864. His portrait represents a face expressing firmness, a 
mouth that shut close like General Grant's, with a fine high 
forehead, and with traces of kindness and humor. 

His son, Rev. John Spurgeon, was borne in Stambourne, 
in 1811, and entered on the ministry in middle life as pastor 
of an Independent church in Tollesbury, whence he re- 
moved later to Cranbrook, Kent, where he was pastor for 
five years. After his son became eminent, the father was 
pastor successively of two churches in London. He now 
(1892) resides in West Croydon, having survived his son. 
He is remembered by those who kncAV him in his prime as 
an earnest, faithful preacher. 

His wife (who recently deceased) was a woman of marked 
character and devoted godliness, whose wise and prayerful 
piety was rewarded by the conversion of each of her chil- 
dren. Her husband was once troubled by doubt if he were 
acting rightly in going from home so often to preach the 
gospel ; ought he not to remain at his home and to care for 
the salvation of his children ? As he passed the door of his 
wife's room, he heard her praying for each of the children, 
and especially for Charles. The husband felt that he might 
safely carry on the work of God and leave the children to 
the care of the Lord and of such a mother. 

There was a world of meaning in the words of the father 
when he was told of the death of his son: "What a 
happy meeting there has been between Charles and his 
mother ! " 

In the day when God shall render to every man accord- 
ing to his work, who can say how large will be the reward 
of these parents and grandparents and ancestors who would 



10 LIFE OF SPURGE ON. 

not be known but for the flaming effulgence reflected back 
from the light which they helped to kindle ? 

Of these parents, Charles Haddon Spurgeon was born 
June 19, 1834, in Kelvedon, Essex, where they were then 
residing. 

When he was fourteen months old, the child went on a long 
visit to his grandparents, who were very fond of him. And 
now the surroundings began to be a forming influence. The 
grandfather was a man whose strong Puritanism showed 
itself in his " high " doctrines, in his uprightness, in his almost 
passionate love for Dr. Watts, and his vehement protest 
against the use of any other hymns. But all was consistent 
with tenderness and with most friendly relations with the 
Rector of the parish, Mr. Hopkins, the minister and the 
rector frequently attending each other's services. 

The grandfather was a man of much originality and 
humor. He would say to his grandson, 

" Charles, I have nothing to leave you but rheumatic gout ; 
but I have left you a great deal of that." 

Perhaps the grandfather had inherited it from Job 
Spurgeon, whose thirteen winter Aveeks in jail left him a vic- 
tim of rheumatism. Sitting before the fire and rubbing his 
afflicted knees, he would murmur when in the eighties : 

"I do believe that this rheumatism will shorten my 



During the last summer of his life, in 1891, the Taber- 
nacle pastor spent a few days of what he hoped was con- 
valescence, revisiting the home of his boyhood ; in " Memor- 
ies of Stambourne," he has given a charming picture of the 
village, of the generally level scenery, and the fields 
" adorned with cowslips and paigles and harebells and ane- 
mones and wild hyacinths." The love of nature cherished 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 13 

by these rural scenes enriched his life and his ministry, and 
made every flower and tree at Westwood his dear friend. 

In the mean time, his father had removed to Colchester, 
where the boy attended a school kept by Mrs. Cook, the wife 
of a sea-captain. Later he went to the school of Mr. 
Lewis, and later still, with his brother James, to a school at 
Maidstone. He next attended Mr. Swindell's school at 
Newmarket, as usher, receiving tuition in Greek in exchange 
for his work. Thus early, his scholarship was such as to 
make his services valuable. After the death of the son, the 
aged father read to a visitor an extract from his own diary, 
dated August 17, 1849 : " Charles started for Newmarket 
/.his morning ; his mother went with him ; the Lord go with 
him and keep him and bless him." 

As to this period of his life. Professor J. D. Everett, F. 
R. S. Queen's College, Belfast, who was his fellow usher, 
writes to the " Christian World " : 

From a short-hand diary which I kept at Mr. Swindell's, 
I transcribe a few passages. 

On Friday evening, August 17, 1849, as w^e expected 
Mr. Spurgeon, the new teacher, to arrive by the coach at 
half-past five, we went to the heath to see the coach in. As 
it passed us, we saw no one outside, and only a few ladies 
and a boy inside ; so we concluded the teacher had not come. 
However, the boy was Mr. Spurgeon. He is fifteen years 
old, and is a clever, pleasant little fellow. He comes from 
a collegiate school at Maidstone, in which he obtained the 
first prize, but he knows very little Latin and Greek, and in 
mathematics has done five books of Euclid, and only as far 
as equations and the Binomial Theorem in algebra. 

Sunday, August 19. — Mr. Spurgeon is a nice lad. 

IVIonday, August 20. — After the twelve o'clock interval, 
Mr. Spurgeon and I went, with Mr. Swindell's permission, 
into our own room and read Horace. He knows, I think, 
more Latin than any of the boys, but not quite as much as 
I know. 



14 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

Tuesday, October 9. — After dinner I took Percy and 
four other boys to see the races. Mr. Spurgeon .did not go, 
as he thought he should be doing wrong. 

We boarded in the house, occupied the same bedroom, 
took our walks together, discussed our common grievances, 
and were the best of friends. He was rather small and del- 
icate, Avith pale but plump face, dark brown eyes and hair, 
and a bright, lively manner, with a never-failing flow of 
conversation. He was rather deficient in muscle, did not 
care for cricket or other athletic games, and was timid at 
meeting cattle on the road. 

He had been well brought up in a family with strong 
Puritanical tendencies, and was proficient in the subjects 
taught in the middle-class schools of those days. He knew 
a little Greek, enough Latin to gather the general sense of 
Virgil's ^neid without a dictionary, and was fond of alge- 
bra. He had a big book of equation problems, and could 
do all the problems in it except two or three. He was a 
smart, clever boy at all kind of book learning ; and, judging 
from the accounts he gave me of his experiences in his father's 
counting-house, he was also a smart man of business. He 
was a keen observer of men and manners, and very shrcAvd 
in his judgments. He enjoyed a joke, but was earnest. Bard- 
working, and strictly conscientious. 

He had a wonderful memory for passages of oratory 
which he admired, and used to pour forth to me with great 
gusto in our walks, long screeds from open-air addresses of 
a very rousing description, which he had heard delivered at 
Colchester Fair by the Congregational minister, Mr. Davids. 
His imagination had evidently been greatly impressed by 
these services. I have also heard him recite long passages 
from Bunyan's " Grace Abounding." 

He was a delightful companion, cheerful and sympa- 
thetic, a good listener as well as a good talker. And he was 
not cast in a common conventional mould, but had a strong 
character of his own. 

In the following year, he went to Cambridge as usher 
in a school. It was during his residence here that the fol- 
lowing advertisement appeared in a Cambridge newspaper : 



LIFE OF SPUR G EON. 15 

No. 60 Upper Park Street, Cambridge. 

Mr. C. H. Spurgeon begs to inform his numerous friends 
that, after Christmas, he intends taking six or seven young 
gentlemen as day pupils. He will endeavour to the utmost 
to impart a good commercial education. The ordinary 
routine will include arithmetic, algebra, geometry, and 
mensuration ; grammar and composition ; ancient and 
modern history; geography, natural history, astronomy. 
Scripture, and drawing. Latin and the elements of Greek 
and French if required. Terms, five pounds per annum. 

This will remind the reader of another advertisement, 
which appeared in the " Gentleman's Magazine" for 1736 . 

At Edial, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire, young gentle- 
men are boarded and taught the Latin and Greek languages 
by Samuel Johnson. 

In all these schools, he was a faithful scholar in the lan- 
guages and in mathematics. The popular conception which 
represents him as uneducated is erroneous. Voluntary 
ignorance cannot quote his example. 

The lad had always been of a serious character, given to 
books rather than to boyish play. Many tales are told of 
his conscientiousness, of his boldness in rebuking sin, of his 
calling his aunt (who was another mother in tender care, 
and in indulgence) and his brothers out to the barn, where 
he would seat them on the trusses of straw, while he would 
ascend the manger and preach to them. His moral thought- 
fulness AA^as marked by the family and even by visitors. 
When he was ten years old. Rev. Richard Knill visited 
Stambourne to preach for the London Missionary Society. 
That he was struck Avith the promise of the boy Avas not 
altogether strange; clergymen on a collecting tour are 
ahvays much impressed by the high qualities of the children 
of their hosts. But the feelings of Mr Knill took a more 

2 



16 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

definite form ; he talked and prayed with the boy, and call- 
ing the family together, he laid his hands on the lad's head, 
and expressed his conviction that the young Spurgeon would 
preach the gospel to many thousands. Perhaps the predic- 
tion, as often, aided to produce its own falfillment. 

A celebrated passage in one of his early sermons seems 
to indicate that he was once in danger of falling into 
skepticism : 

" There was an hour in which I slipped the anchor of my 
faith; I cut the cable of my belief; I no longer moored 
myself hard by the coast of revelation ; I allowed the vessel 
to drift before the wind, and thus started on the voyage of 
infidelity." 

But the state of unbelief thus portrayed must have been 
of very brief duration, though naturally, as he looked back 
upon it, it seemed the horror of thick darkness. 

At length came the time when he was thoroughly aroused 
about his soul. 

"Six months did I pray — prayed agonizingly with all 
my heart, and never had an answer. ... I felt that I was 
willing to do anything and be anything if God would only 
forgive me." 

At this time, the family were living in Colchester ; but 
the father was preaching to a little church in Tollesbury. 
The Sunday was very stormy; Charles could not go to 
Tollesbury ; his mother said : 

" You had better go to-day to the Primitive Methodist 
Chapel." 

The preacher in this chapel was a very plain, laboring 
man, who, on week days, planted cabbages and tended them. 
So few people were present that morning, that the preacher 
•had decided not to preach ; but his mind was changed. 



LIFE OF SPURGEOX. 17 

Charles sat and waited ; at last, a very tliin, pale man went 
into the pulpit and gave out the text : 

" Look unto me, and be ye saved, all ye ends of the 
earth." Then fixing his eyes on the trembling boy, he said : 
" Young man, you are in ti-ouble. You will never get out 
of it unless you come to Christ." Then lifting his thin 
hands, he cried, "Look, look, look; only look'' 

In an instant, the darkness was rolled away. In the even- 
ing, he went to the Baptist chapel, where he heard a sermon 
from the words, "Accepted in the beloved ; " and he felt 
peace and an assurance of salvation. At night, when all 
others in the house had gone to bed, he told his father the 
story of the day. 

The narrative of his blameless youth, of his prolonged 
agony, and of the final dawning of day, suggests more than 
one lesson. That, in order to be an eminent saint, one must 
first have been a flagrant sinner ; that there is no such mate- 
rial for the Christian worker as the reclaimed prize fighter, 
the regenerate saloon keeper, or the reformed burglar, — all 
this is one of the Devil's lies. 

If the gospel had been preached in Colchester as simply 
and plainly as it was later preached in the Tabernacle, the 
poor lad would have been spared months of suffering, of 
groping. Indeed, it is by no means certain but that he had 
already submitted to God, and that the gracious text, quoted 
by the plain preacher, merely revealed to himself that God 
had accepted him in the Beloved. 

Young Spurgeon at once felt that he must profess his 
faith in the Saviour. His parents and all his ancestors had 
been Congregationalists. But after diligently reading the 
New Testament with prayer for guidance, he became con- 
vinced that there was no baptism save the immersion of a 



18 LIFE OF SFUUGFOJ^. 

believer upon the intelligent profession of his faiih. In ac- 
cordance with the spirit of religious liberty which his ances- 
tors had brought from Holland, the father opposed no 
obstacle to the son's choice. Accordingly, on Friday, May 
3, 1851, Charles walked from Newmarket (where he was 
then usher) to Isleham Ferry and was baptized by Pastor 
Cantlow. 

The "Sword and Trowel" for April, 1890, contains an 
article from Mr. Spurgeon, entitled " Baptizing at Isleham 
Ferry," from which we quote : 

In January, 1850, I w^as enabled, by divine grace, to 
lay hold on Jesus Christ as my Saviour. Being called, in 
the providence of God, to live at Newmarket as usher in a 
school, I essayed to join myself to the church of believers in 
that town ; but according to my reading of Holy Scripture, 
the believer in Christ should be buried with him in baptism, 
and so enter upon his open Christian life. I cast about to 
find a Baptist minister, and I failed to find one nearer than 
Isleham, in the Fen country, where resided a certain Mr. 
W. W. Cantlow, who had once been a missionary in Jamaica, 
but was then pastor of one of the Isleham Baptist churches. 
My parents Avished me to follow my own convictions, Mr. 
Cantlow arranged to baptize me, and my employer gave me 
a day's holiday for that purpose. 

I can never forget the 3d of May, 1850; it was my 
mother's birthday, and I myself was Avithin a few weeks of 
being sixteen years of age. I was up early, to have a couple 
of hours for quiet prayer and dedication to God. Then I 
had some eight mil&s to walk, to reach the spot where I was 
to be immersed into the Triune name according to the sacred 
command. It was by no means a warm day, and therefore 
all the better for the two or tln-ee hours of quiet foot-travel, 
which I enjoyed. The sight of Mr. CantloAv's smiling face 
was a full reward for that country tramp. I think I see the 
good man now, and the white ashes of the turf-fire by which 
we stood and talked together about the solemn exercise which 
lay before us. 

We went together to the Ferry, for the Isleham friends 



«:W.^^, 




LIFE OF SPURGEON. 21 

had not degenerated to in-door immersion in a bath made 
by the art of man, but used the ampler baptistery of the 
flowing river. 

Isleham Ferry, on the River Lark, is a very quiet spot, 
half a mile from the village, and rarely disturbed by traffic 
at any time of the year. The river itself is a beautiful 
stream, dividing Cambridgeshire from Suffolk. The ferry 
house, hidden in the picture by the trees, is freely opened 
for the convenience of minister and candidates at a bap- 
tizing. Where the barge is hauled up for repairs, the 
preacher takes his stand, when the baptizing is on a week- 
day, and there are few spectators present. But on Lord's 
day, when great numbers are attracted, the preacher, stand- 
ing in a barge moored mid-stream, speaks the word to the 
crowds on both sides of the river. This can be done the 
more easily, as the river is not very wide. Where three 
persons are seen at a stand, is the usual place for entering 
the water. The right depth, w4th sure footing, may soon be 
found, and so the delightful service proceeds in the gently 
flowing stream. No accident or disorder has ever marred 
the proceedings. In the course of seven or eight miles, the 
Lark serves no fewer than five Baptist churches ; and they 
would on no account give up baptizing out of doors. 

To me there seemed to be a great concourse on that 
week-day. Dressed, I believe, in a jacket, with a boy's 
turn-down collar, I attended the service previous to the 
ordinance ; but all remembrance of it has gone from me ; 
my thoughts were in the water, sometimes with my Lord in 
joy, and sometimes with myself in trembling awe at making 
so public a confession. ... It w^as a new experience to me, 
never having seen a baptism. . . . The wind came down 
the river with a cutting blast, as my turn came to wade into 
the flood ; but after I had walked a few steps, and noted the 
people on the ferry boat, and in boats, and either shore, I 
felt as if heaven and earth and hell might gaze upon me ; 
for I was not ashamed then and there to own myself a fol- 
lower of the Lamb. Timidity was gone ; I have scarcely 
met with it since. I lost a thousand fears in that river 
Lark, and found that in keeping his commandments there 
is great reward. It was a thrice happy day to me. God 
be praised for the preserving goodness which allows me to 
write with delight of it at the distance of fortv vears. . . . 



22 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

If any ask, wliy was I thus baptized ? I answer, because 
I believed it to be an ordinance of Christ, very specially 
joined by him with faith in his name. " He that believeth 
and is baptized, shall be saved." I had no superstitious idea 
that baptism would save me, for I was saved. I did not 
seek to have sin washed away by water, for I believed that 
my sins were forgiven me through faith in Christ Jesus. 
Yet I regarded baptism as the token to the believer of cleans- 
ing, the emblem of his burial with his Lord, and the out- 
ward avowal of his new birth. I did not trust in it ; but 
because I trusted in Jesus as my Saviour, I felt bound to 
obey him as my Lord, and follow the example which he set 
us in Jordan, in his own baptism. I did not fulfill the out- 
Avard ordinance to join a party and become a Baptist, but 
to be a Christian after the apostolic fashion, for they, when 
they believed, were baptized. 

True, there was no saving efficacy in the outward ordi- 
nance ; but who can doubt that the conscientious discharge 
of duty in the face of some obstacles was blessed in giving 
him that firmness in adherence to righteousness which was 
the keynote of his life ? 

As soon as he felt the joy of conversion, the lad desired 
to serve his Master by leading others to the fountain of life. 
He distributed tracts ; he taught in the Sunday-school ; he 
set copies for the boys, and thus gained entrance to their 
homas, where he gave away his tracts. 

Upon going to Cambridge, he united himself with the 
church of which Robert Hall had been the brilliant and 
gifted preacher, and which now has as its pastor Mr. Tarn, 
one of Mr. Spurgeon's most successful students. He also 
joined the Lay-preachers' Association, and aided in conduct- 
ing meetings in the villages near by. One evening, he was 
requested to go Avith a brother to the hamlet of Teversham, 
foar miles away, as the brother who Avas to preach there Avas 
unused to the work, and Avould be much encouraged by the 



LIFE OF SPURGEOX. 25 

presence of a Christian companion. Young Spurgeon prom- 
ised, thinking that perhaps he would be asked to pray or to 
read the chapter. On the way, he said to his comrade : 

" I hope you will be much blessed this evening in preach- 
ing." 

" Oh, dear ! " Avas the reply, " I never preached in my life ; 
it is you that will preach ; there will be no preaching unless 
you do." 

Seeing no way of escape, he cast himself on God for 
help, and spoke, in the farm kitchen, to the handful of rus- 
tics, from the words of Peter, " To you, therefore, that be- 
lieve, he is precious." 

The people gazed in wonder at the boy in his round 
jacket and his broad turn-over collar. As he closed the 
sermon, an aged dame cried out ; 

" How old are you ? " 

" You must not ask questions now," he replied. 

After the service was over, the eager inquiries were re- 
newed : " How old are you ? " 

" Less than sixty." 

" Less than sixty, indeed ! Less than sixteen." 

" Well, no matter how old I am ; let us listen to the 
words of the Lord." 

The name of the young preacher was soon widely known. 
His services were in demand in all the villages about Cam- 
bridge, though the worldly circumstances of the humble 
churches were such that his labors were recompensed only 
Avith a great deal of experience. Often the wants of the 
little congregation drew heavily on his sympathies and on 
his slender purse. He has related that once, of a rainy 
evening, after he had walked several miles to a village, 
he found that no one had ventured out ; so, in his rubber 



26 LIFE OF SPURGEON, 

coat and with his lantern, he went from house to house, and 
cottage to cottage, inviting, urging the people to come and 
hear the gospel ; and thus he gathered a little cojigregation. 

Presently, in 1851, being then eighteen, he was invited to 
become the pastor of the small church in Waterbeach, an 
humble farming village in Essex. He at once accepted the 
call. He did not wait for a large field ; he entered the field 
which Providence had opened. At once people were at- 
tracted by the young preacher. The little thatched chapel 
(Avhich was burned in 1861) became crowded ; people stood 
outside at the windows. Nor was it alone curiosity. The pas- 
tor was not satisfied to draw a crowd ; he wanted conver- 
sions ; and within the year of his labors the church grew 
from forty to a hundred. Through the entire community 
the efiect of his labors was seen : drunkards became sober 
and profligates virtuous. 

During this year of his pastorate at Waterbeach his father 
and other friends urged him to enter Regent's Park College, 
under the care of the justly eminent Dr. Joseph Angus, and 
to take a full course of literary and theological study. It 
was arranged that, while the President was on a visit to 
Cambridge, Mr. Spurgeon should meet* him, at a given hour, 
at the house of Mr. Macmillan, the publisher. Each ar- 
rived at the time ; by the error of a servant each was shown 
into a difierent room ; neither knew of the nearness of the 
other. After an hour or two of waiting, each became weary, 
and each went his way. 

On the same afternoon, as Mr. Spurgeon was walking 
across Cambridge on his way to preach in the neighborhood, 
he seemed to hear an audible voice pronouncing the words : 
" Seekest thou great things for thyself ? Seek them not." 
He received the command as a message from God. 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 27 

" I remembered my poor but loving people among whom 
I ministered and the souls who had been given me in my 
humble charge; and although at that time I anticipated 
obscurity and poverty as the result of my resolve, yet I did 
there and then renounce the offer of collegiate instruction, 
determining to abide, for a season at least, with my people, 
and to remain preaching the word as long as I had strength 
to do it." He wrote to his father : 

" Unless you expressly command me, I shall not enter the 
College ; I shall remain with the Waterbeach Church." 

It is idle to speculate on what might have been ; if we 
believe that the God of infinite wisdom and love guides us 
when we sincerely and humbly ask for guidance, we can 
hardly regard this incident as excepted from God's care. It 
is not easy to see how a course at Regent's Park or at either 
of the Universities, would have increased his spiritual power 
or his usefulness. But that he did not set at naught the 
value of consecrated mental discipline and acquirement was 
shown later in his establishment of a college for the educa- 
tion of ministers. 

The church had in former times paid the minister from 
five pounds a year up to twenty-five pounds. At first, Mr. 
Spurgeon continued his labors as usher ; but presently he 
gave up all else, and the church, with its increased strength, 
raised his salary to fifty pounds a year, or not far from nine- 
teen shillings a week. Mr. Spurgeon once said to the 
writer : 

" I paid twelve shillings a week for my rooms at Cam- 
bridge, and had left seven shillings for all other expenses"; 
but the people, whenever they came to town, would bring 
potatoes, turnips, cabbages, apples, and sometimes a bit of 
meat : and so I manaojed to live." 



28 LIFE OF SPURGEOX. 

" But once," he added, " I was very much in need of a 
hat ; and hats did not grow on the farms at AVaterbeach ; so 
I said to the Lord, ' O Lord, I must be decent ; I need a hat 
very much.' There was a man in the parish who was quite 
wealthy for a village, having several thousand pounds ; but 
he was dreadfully penurious. He showed his parsimony 
years later, when he Avas dying. He had been in a chamber 
on the second story ; but when he found that he was going 
to die, he managed to crawl down, with great pain, to the 
first floor, so that he might die there, and his estate might 
not have to pay a shilling for having his body carried down 
one flight of stairs. And further, to save church-yard fees, 
he left directions that his body should be buried in a corner 
of the garden. 

" The Sunday noon after I had told the Lord about my 
need, this man very quietly called me to come with him 
behind the chapel. After looking around everywhere to see 
if we were alone, he said to me : 

" ' The Lord told me to give you seven and six. Here it 
is. And I want you to pray that I may be saved from 
coveteousness.' 

" So I bought a hat. The next Sunday, in the same secret 
way, he called me again to the rear of the chapel. I was at 
a loss to know what he could want this time. In great dis- 
tress, he said : 

" ' Oh, dear ! The Lord told me to give you ten shillings, 
but I kept back two and six, and I haven't slept a wink all 
the week ; and here it is. Pray that I may not be lost.' 

" The people were hospitable and generous beyond their 
means. For the fifty-two Sundays, I had fifty-six homes." 

Every door stood open ; the only question was who should 
have the privilege of entertaining him on his next weekly 



LIFE OF SPUEGEGiS. 29 

visit. Meanwhile, the deacons and the more far-sighted of 
the members, after the manner of men, were divided be- 
tween delight in their new welfare and forebodings as to 
their losing the (human) source of their prosperity. They 
felt but too surely in their prophetic souls that such a 
preacher could not long be monopolized by Waterbeach. 

And all this time, Providence, while preparing the man 
for the field, was also preparing a field for the man. The 
New Park Street Church in London had enjoyed a most 
honorable history. It had maintained the truth, it had 
borne burdens and sufferings for Christ's sake and the gos- 
pel's, in the midst of defection; it had enjoyed the labors 
of a succession of holy men, one of whom, Benjamin Keach, 
had stood in the pillory for preaching the gospel. There 
was a great store of promises yet unfulfilled, of prayers not 
yet granted. But at preesent it seemed as if, humanly 
speaking, the future of the church lay wholly in the past. 
The chapel was not far from Southwark Bridge, in a part 
of Southwark that had become a most undesirable neigh- 
borhood, amid shabby houses and breweries. Thrale's his- 
torical brewery had been in this neighborhood. The chapel, 
built in more prosperous times for a congregation of twelve 
hundred, now rarely saw more than a hundred, though the 
church numbered two hundred. Xo doubt, as with all an- 
cient churches, many of the members were advanced in 
years, and many had retained their connection, though they 
had removed to a distance. The few who remained were 
growing discouraged. Xo doubt in the prayer meeting, held 
in the dark and unveutilated lecture room, the aged standard 
bearei^ used to dilate upon the past glories of Zion, and to 
extol the memory of the sainted Rippon, and the long-since 
departed Keach, and the venerated Gill, and the still sur- 



30 LIFE OF SPURGEOX. 

viving xA_ngus. How little they knew that a future lay just 
before the church, compared with which its past would fade 
and pale ! 

The pulpit was vacant, and they were anxiously looking 
for a man who should fill not only it, but the eleven hundred 
empty sittings. 

There was a Sunday-school meeting at Cambridge. The 
speakers were two most respectable and rather dull divines 
and a young man ; the latter spoke with the ardor and the 
imprudence which is apt to mark the men who are to make 
eras. He was rebuked by his seniors for his unguarded 
utterances. But there was a visitor from Essex, who no 
doubt was not a stranger to the growing reputation of the 
young preacher of Waterbeach. Struck with his address, he 
said to Deacon James Low, of the New Park Street Church, 
that he believed that in this youth of nineteen they would 
find the man they needed and prayed for. And thus it 
came about that in November, 1853, when Mr. Spurgeon 
reached Waterbeach Chapel one Sunday morning and took 
his seat in the " table pew " to select the hymns from Rip- 
pon's Watts, a letter was handed him. It was from Deacon 
Low, and was an invitation to come to London and preach 
on an early Lord's Day. Mr. Spurgeon read it, and handed 
it to a deacon, with the remark : 

" It is, of course, a mistake ; they would never think of 
inviting me ; it must be meant for another minister of the 
same name." 

" No," the deacon replied; " it is not a mistake ; I knew 
that this would be the end of it ; but I wonder that the 
Londoners have heard of you so quickly. Noav, if it had 
been Cottenham, or St. Ives, or Huntingdon, I should not 
have wondered ; but London ! " 



LIFE OF SPURGEON, 31 

Mr. Spiirgeon put the letter aside, and preached as usual, 
and next day wrote to London, explaining that the pastor at 
AVaterbeach was but nineteen years old, and that the letter 
was evidently not intended for him. But a reply was 
received, saying that the church was aware of his age, and 
that the invitation was meant for him, and was renewed. 

And so, on the appointed day, he went to London. He 
was entertained in a boarding house, still known as Burr's 
Hotel. Among the guests were several young men, who, as 
soon as they learned the errand on which he had come to the 
city, chaffed him, telling him about the great preachers in 
London, and by implication showing the madness of a young 
man from the country, with scanty education, dreaming of 
competing with them. As the result of this singularly wanton 
cruelty, the lad went to his room and bed with a heavy 
heart. Kext morning, as he reached the chapel, he w^as 
awed by its size, and by the memory of the great men of 
the past. How could he stand in the pulpit where Gill and 
Rippon had stood ? 

But he gathered courage, and preached from James 1:17: 
" Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and 
Cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no 
varidbleness, neither shadow of turning." The congrega- 
tion numbered about eighty. And these had been gathered 
with labor. During the previous week, the deacons had 
been drumming up a congregation. Among others, they 
had gone to Miss Susannah Thompson, daughter of Mr. 
Robert Thompson, saying : 

" There is a young- man from Essex coming to preach for 
us on Sunday. Do come and help to make a respectable 
show, so that he may not see how very few we are." 

The young lady came ; at night she came again. She will 



32 LIFE OF SPURGEOX. 

appear more than once on these pages ; her name will ever 
be associated with his. 

The people in the morning were carried away by the 
young preacher. Apparently they spent much of the after- 
noon in telling of the marvelous sermon ; in the evening, 
there were several hundred present. Never again would it 
be needful to work up an audience for Spurgeon, He 
preached from the words : " They are without fault before 
the throne of God," Rev. 14:5. The sermon deepened the 
impression made in the morning. After the service, the 
people lingered in the house, and would not be pacified 
w^ithout an assurance from the officials that Mr. Spurgeon 
should be invited to preach again. So he was asked to spend 
another Sunday at New Park Street as soon as possible. He 
w^ould make no engagement before seeing the little church 
at "Waterbeach. 

On the way home that evening with one of the deacons, 
they stopped to hear a celebrated minister, toward the close 
of his discourse. 

" Do they call that great preaching ? " asked Mr. Spurgeon. 

" Yes," replied the deacon. 

" Then I can preach in London." 

In the end, he preached every other Sunday for six wrecks 
in London. Each Sunday increased the enthusiasm. An 
invitation, not unanimous, was given him to preach for six 
months. In his reply, he said : 

" With regard to a six months' invitation from you, I 
have no objection to the length of time, but rather approve 
of the prudence of the church in wishing to have one so 
young as myself on an extended period of approbation. 
But I write after well weighing the matter, when I say posi- 
tively that I cannot — I dare not — accept an unqualified 



LIFE OF SPURGEOX, 33 

invitation for so long a time. ... It ill becomes a youth to 
promise to preach to a London congregation so long, until 
he knows them, and they know him. I would engage to 
supply for three months of that time, and then, should the 
congregation fail, or the church disagree, I would reserve 
to myself liberty, without breach of engagement, to retire ; 
and you would on your part have the right to dismiss me 
without seeming to treat me ill. Should I see no reason 
for so doing, and the church still retain their wish for me, 
I can remain the other three months, either with or with- 
out the formality of a second invitation. ... I respect the 
honesty and boldness of the small minority, and only wonder 
that the number was not greater. . . . And now, one thing is 
due to every minister, and I pray you to remind the church 
of it, namely, that in private, as well as in public, they must 
all wrestle in prayer to God that I may be sustained in the 
great work." 

Long before even the three months had passed, all ques- 
tion had ceased. There was no minority ; the entire church 
called him to the pastorate. On Friday, April 28, 1854, he 
accepted the call, and at once entered the field which he was 
to leave only with his life. 

In all this correspondence and the events connected with 
it, and in the story of his early life, several things may be 
remarked. One is the singular maturity and judgment of a 
lad of nineteen. He was neither bashful nor over-confident ; 
he trusted in God and looked to him for success. 

And there was an absence of seeking after a great place. 
To many young men, settled with a little country church, on 
a salary of fifty pounds, an invitation to London would have 
been an intoxication ; and the only question would have 
been, " When does the first express start for London ? " But 



34 LIFE OF ISPURGEON. 

he put aside the first invitation as not meant, for him. There 
was no eagerness; he believed, and did not make haste. 
Whether he had ever thought of a career, we do not know ; 
but certainly he acted on the principle that the way to be 
prepared for a greater to-morrow is to do faithfully the 
small duty of to-day. 



CHAPTER II. 

NEW PARK STREET CHAPEL. 

THE enthusiasm which had attended the three months of 
trial did not wane. The chapel was always crowded. 
" In the evenings, when the gas was burning, it was like the 
Black Hole of Calcutta." One evening in 1854, the 
preacher exclaimed : 

" By faith the walls of Jericho came down ; and by faith 
this wall at the back shall come down." 

After the service an aged and prudent deacon, addicted 
to that mixture of self-satisfaction and indolence which we 
call " conservatism," exclaimed in rather domineering tones : 

" Let us never hear of that again." 

" \y hat do you mean ? " said the preacher. " You will 
hear no more about it when it is done ; and therefore the 
sooner you set about doing it the better." 

While the enlargement was in progress, February 11, 
1855, to May 27, the church occupied Exeter Hall, in the 
Strand, holding two thousand five hundred to three thousand. 
But this too proved wholly inadequate. Often the crowd 
overflowed into the street. All London came to see what it 
was which drew all London. And what did all London 
see ? They did not see, as they perhaps expected, a mounte- 
bank. Nor, on the ' other hand, did they see a man of 
clerical appearance (though in his early ministry, he wore 
the white neck-tie which later he discarded as a "white 
boiled rag.") They did not see (it is hardly necessary to 

35 



36 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

remark) a lord. The spectacle of a lord preaching the 
gospel would always draw an audience in England. Nor 
did they see a man crowned with the honors of the universi- 
ties; but rather one who by his conscientious belief was 
excluded from the opportunities and privileges of Oxford and 
Cambridge. Nor did they hear doctrines softened down. ISTor 
were the doctrines brought in as an incident. Rather the 
Puritan theology was stated in the boldest form, and made 
to stand out in almost repulsive bareness. And these doc- 
trines were made the warp and woof of the sermon. After 
one of his celebrated Yale Lectures on Preaching, Mr. 
Beecher was asked a question about Mr. Spurgeon's Cal- 
vinism. He replied : 

" Mr. Spurgeon does not owe anything to his Calvinism, 
anything more than the camel does to his hump." Mr. 
Spurgeon replied, in the " Sword and Trowel," by quoting 
from an eminent naturalist, who said, in substance : 

" The camel's hump is indispensable to him. It is made 
up of fat, which supplies to him condensed nourishment 
through all of a long journey in the desert." 

Mr. Beecher (so Mr. Spurgeon informed the writer) 
had the manliness to acknowledge ' the aptness of the 
reply. 

What, then, did all London see? They saw a young 
man of twenty-one, only a year or two from the country, 
who was absolutely master of the situation, who was poised, 
self-possessed, recognized by an ancient church, and by 
cautious and conservative office-holders as the unquestioned 
leader. 

He trod the platform as Nelson the quarter-deck. Mar- 
velous success did not intoxicate him. He was not exalted, 
nor conceited ; although, indeed, if he had shown signs of 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 37 

conceit, one might well have remembered what old Dr. 
Samuel Johnson said ; 

"They talk about Garrick being conceited; but they 
must consider the circumstances. Why, if I had been flat- 
tered as much as Garrick, and as successful, I would have 
men go before me with long poles, w^hen I went out on the 
street, to knock everybody down.". 

They saw a man as bold as Ney, as John Brown ; who 
might have asked: "How does a man feel when he is 
afraid ? " a man who did not fear to declare unpopular truth, 
who did not hesitate to take responsibility. 

Yet, with all the courage of youth, he combined the 
wisdom of age. He made no mistakes. His common sense 
was gigantic. The smart and spiteful, and therefore foolish 
sayings attributed to him were pure inventions. Once he 
was asked if he really uttered the mot attributed to him by 
all the paragraphers : 

" Resist the devil and he will flee from you ; resist the 
deacons and they will fly at you." 

" Xo," he replied, " I never had the wit to originate it nor 
the experience to justify it; and it has been ascribed to 
others hundreds of years before I was born." 

On the contrary, he had great thin^ to accomplish, and 
he would not peril them by alienating, for the sake of an 
epigram, those whose help was indispensable. And he 
always spoke of his deacons and of his friends Avith enthusi- 
astic affection : " no one ever had such friends as I." 

They saw a man who believed what he said ; to whom 
everything that he taught was intensely real. The doctrines 
were alive; he made them breathe and pulsate. They 
were not weapons to be furbished up for their own 
sake alone, and then laid aside. They were to control the 



38 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

life. Religion was not something to be put in one's iron 
safe, along with his other fire insurance policies, and looked 
at once a week. If was to control every moment of the life. 
Repentance Avas not merely an exercise preliminary to join- 
ing the church ; it meant leaving off every wrong practice ; 
it meant, as in actual instances, for the thief to restore his 
spoils. 

The Bible was not a book to be laid away in decorous and 
dusty disuse, nor was it a book to be read as a task, hateful 
but unavoidable. -Rather the Bible was a book to be read, 
to be believed, to be obeyed, to be enjoyed, a counsellor in 
perplexity, a solace in trial. 

They saw a man who was master of that great gift, the 
plainest and simplest Anglo-Saxon speech, who preached 
with the single aim that all should understand, whether they 
would or not. He did not preach about " the drift of cur- 
rent theological thought," or about "a parallel between 
Paul's Epistles and the Dialectics of Aristotle," or about 
"the primordial germ," or about "the alleged use of two- 
tined forks among the prehistoric races." He had no liter- 
ary or professional ambition. He used the English of Bun- 
yan and of Abraham Lincoln. 

They saw a man who spoke directly to the soul, who 
seemed to look into the heart of each person in the thou- 
sands before him, and talked with him as if the two were 
absolutely alone in the spiritual world. Once the writer 
heard him close a sermon in something like these words : 

" Will you accept Christ ? " " Well, I will think about it." 
" That is not the question. Will you accept Christ ? " "I will 
go home and pray." " No, that is not the question. Will you 
accept Christ ? " "I will leave off swearing." " No, that is not 
the question ; will you accept Christ f"^. 



LIFE OF SPVRGEON. 39 

And he pressed the question, till it seemed that no one in 
the great congregation could avoid deciding then and there 
the issue of eternity. 

They saw a man preaching twice a week, and often three 
times, to his own people, and perhaps a dozen times abroad. 
He never used old sermons, never repeated himself in prayer 
or sermon. There was always infinite variety. 

They heard a voice which was perhaps the most wonder- 
ful and effective ever given to a public speaker, which was 
not vociferous to those near at hand, while yet it was dis- 
tinctly heard by five, or ten, or even twenty thousand. It 
was a voice that had the singular quality of ringing in one's 
ears years after it has been heard, especially when it was 
instinct with deep, passionate feeling. The writer remem- 
bers hearing him give this notice : 

" You will find petitions in the other end of the house 
against the opium traffic in India and China ; I hope you 
will all sign them. For a government to carry on dram 
shops for the sake of the profit is inexcusable ; but that the 
government should carry on poison shops is utterly abomi- 
nable." 

Eleven years have passed ; but as we write, we seem to hear 
once more those tones of indignant, burning humanity. And 
he had this voice perfectly in control ; he effected, what is 
one of the rarest achievements of a public speaker, a tone 
of familiar, yet elevated conversation, a conversation adr 
dressed to the great congregation. 

When he prayed, it was evident that he trod a path 
which was familiar to his feet. There were the loftiest sen- 
timents expressed in the simplest language. There was the 
devotion of the closet carried into the pulpit, lifting up the 
souls of the great multitude. There was not the awe which 



40 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

sometimes characterizes prayer; still less was there] that 
fear which is cast out by perfect love. Perhaps he was 
pleading for more of the love of God : 

" Some of us have only stood on the brink of this great 
river ; some of us have but touched our feet in the stream ; 
some of us have waded up to our ankles ; with some the 
waters have come breast-high." 

Or, again, he would say : 

" O Lord, take us and mold us as the clay, though there 
is so much grit in us that it must hurt thy fingers." 

There was much that might be startling to one accustomed 
to the rhythm and order and propriety — (shall we say con- 
ventionalism ?) — of the Book of Common Prayer. Yet few 
persons, while listening to Mr. Spurgeon, would feel the 
need of a prayer book. 

When he read from the Scripture, it was no longer a vol- 
ume two or three thousand years old; it became a new 
book. Every verse was instinct with life. His running com- 
ments were rich and suggestive, and were as well worthy 
publication as his sermons. 

To hear him read a psalm and comment upon it was 
an event. He had passed through deep waters; he had 
borne burdens. These things help a man to see into the 
Psalms, make them real to him. The late Francis Way- 
land, in speaking of Calvin's Commentary on the Psalms, 
once said, " Calvin had been through persecution, sickness, 
loneliness, danger, exile. All these things rub the Psalms 
into a man." 

Of course, the newspapers soon became aware of what was 
going on, and of a good deal that was not going on. Their 
first impulse was to hold him up to ridicule as a mountebank, 
and, at odd hours, to invent ridiculous stories about him. 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 41 

Gradually, however, the conviction forced itself upon them 
that he was a spiritual power ; it did not make very great 
odds ; they could not ignore him. Every mention only in- 
creased the number who could not get into the congregation. 

When the newspapers said that he slid down the pulpit ban- 
isters and then painfully climbed up again, to show how easy 
is backsliding and how difficult is recovery (and this at a 
time when there were no banisters and no stairs in sight, the 
pulpit being reached by stairs from the rear), people came 
to see the stairs, and remained to pray and to be saved. 

To the comic papers, here was a harvest not to be neg- 
lected. They swarmed with caricatures, though often, in- 
deed, these caricatures were an indirect commendation. 
One caricature gives a pair of portraits labeled respectively 
" Brimstone " and " Treacle." The former is a young man 
of plain and unprofessional appearance, who is speaking 
without grace, his arms extended wide, but with the utmost 
earnestness ; the other represents a divine in full canonicals, 
with his hair accurately parted and brushed, a white hand- 
kerchief beside the sermon on the cushion, who is reading 
his manuscript with an easy and self-satisfied simper. 

In one instance the editor of a comic paper called to see 
Mr. Spurgeon and said to him : 

" We want you to understand that we have no personal 
feeling, and that we publish these things merely to make 
the paper sell." 

All these caricatures Mr. Spurgeon collected and put into 
an album, enjoying many a laugh over them. 

The enlarged chapel in New Park Street seated eighteen 
hundred ; but to put the constantly growing congregation 
back into the chapel was like trying to crowd the chicken 
back into the shell. So it was needful to return to Exeter Hall. 



42 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

But tlie proprietors of the hall were unwilling for so long a 
time to let it to one church. A fund was started for the 
erection of a new house ; and in the mean time the Music 
Hall in Surrey Gardens, just completed, was engaged for 
Sunday evenings, with some misgivings at the greatness of 
the undertaking. Here, on the evening of Sunday, October 
6, seven thousand persons were assembled, and the pastor 
had begun his prayer, when an alarm was started, as is sup- 
posed, by some miscreants acting in concert. A panic arose ; 
every one crowded to the doors ; the passages became choked ; 
seven persons lost their lives, and tAventy-eight w^ere seri- 
ously injured. The nervous shock to Mr. Spurgeon was so 
severe as for several weeks to prevent him from preaching. 

It is almost incredible ; but while he w^as suffering the ut- 
most distress from the deplorable accident, for which, of 
course, he was no more responsible than Queen Victoria, 
some of the London papers had the injustice and inhumanity 
to attack him savagely and to hold him up to reproach by 
associating him with the calamity. Said one paper : 

We would place in the hand of every right-thinking 
man a whip to scourge from society the authors of such vile 
blasphemies as on Sunday night, above the cries of the dead 
{sic) and the dying, and louder than the wails of misery 
from the maimed and suffering, resounded from the mouth 
of Mr. Spurgeon in the Music Hall of the Surrey Gardens. 

It is gratifying to add that the paper has since become 
better informed, and has been most favorable to Mr. 
Spurgeon and his work. 

To avoid any such liability in the future, it was decided 
to hold services in the Music Hall only in the morning, 
though the evening was far more favorable to large au- 
diences. Of course, all these events made more urgent and 



LIFE OF SFURGEON. 43 

obvious the need for the new building. The fund steadily in- 
creased by the free will offerings of the poor and of the more 
wealthy. A site was selected in Newington Butts, so called 
because, in the olden time, here were set up the butts or tar- 
gets for archery practice. Here also, on the very site, in 
former times. Baptists had been burned at the stake for their 
faith. The site is just across the way from "The Ele- 
phant and Castle," a well-known, or rather widely-known 
tavern. 

It was a great undertaking for a church having very 
small wealth to build a house to hold six thousand per- 
sons, and costing thirty thousand pounds, and to offer it 
to God free from debt. But by this time the people had 
become inspired with something of the faith and bold- 
ness of the pastor; and they had learned from him the 
might of prayer. The prayers of the people came be- 
fore God along with their alms. In the words of Mr. 
Stead : 

" Every man, woman, and child in the church, who had 
accepted the finished work of Christ, and had become a 
member of the Church Militant below, became, as it were, 
not merely a partner with God Almighty, but a son, a 
brother of Jesus Christ, who supported them in the midst 
of all the sordid cares and troubles of their daily life, and 
who, having loved them with an everlasting love, would 
guide their footsteps every day and who would keep them 
unto the end. 

" So far from regarding Mr. Spurgeon primarily as a great 
preacher, it will be more helpful for those who seek, to find 
the secret of his success in his power of prayer. It was 
much more praying than preaching that made Mr. Spurgeon, 
Mr. Spurgeon ; which made this Essex bumpkin a name 



44 LIFE OF SPURGE ON. 

and a power which tells for righteousness in every corner of 
the English-speaking world." 

The Metroj^olitan Tabernacle stands as a monument to 
the power of faith and prayer. 

Over and over, during the work of building, man's 
extremity proved God's opportunity. A friend in Bristol, 
who had never heard Mr. Spurgeon, sent five thousand 
pounds. Another friend loaned twenty thousand pounds in 
securities which the pastor could use as collaterals if he 
needed to borrow money. 

The corner-stone was laid, August 16, 1859L. In Decem- 
ber, 1859, the church ceased meeting in the Music Hall, as 
the proprietors had decided to open it on Sunday evenings 
for amusement. Once more the meetings were held in 
Exeter Hall, from December 18, 1859 till the Tabernacle 
was occupied, March 1, 1861. 

It was during the occupancy of the Music Hall that a 
remarkable letter appeared in the London " Times," which 
was known to proceed from an eminent man of letters, and 
which attracted much attention. The writer described his 
own prejudices, and the slow steps by which he had been 
persuaded to go to the hall to hear "the Calvinist, the 
Baptist." He continues : 

" Fancy a congregation of ten thousand souls, streaming 
into the hall, mounting the galleries, humming, buzzing, 
swarming, — a mighty hive of bees, — eager to secure, at first, 
the best places, and at last any place at all. After waiting 
half an hour — if you wish to have a seat you must be there 
at least that space of time in advance — Mr. Spurgeon 
ascended his tribune. To the hum and rush and trampling 
of men succeeded a low concentrated thrill and murmur 
of devotion, which seemed to run at once like an electric 



LIFE OF SPURGEOX. 47 

curreut through the breast of every one present ; and by this 
magnetic chain the preacher held us fast for about two 
hours. ... It is enough to say of his voice, that its power 
and volume are sufficient to reach every one in that vast 
assembly ; of his language, that it is neither high-flown nor 
homely ; of his style, that it is at times familiar, at times 
declamatory, but always happy, and often eloquent ; of his 
doctrine, that neither the Calvinist nor the Baptist appears 
in the forefront of the battle which is waged by Mr. Spur- 
geon with relentless animosity, and with gospel weapons, 
against irreligion, cant, hj^ocrisy, pride, and those secret 
bosom sins which so easily beset a man in daily life ; and 
to sum up all in a word, it is enough to say of the man him- 
self that he impresses you with a perfect sense of his sincerity. 
. . . Here is a man not more Calvinist than many an incum- 
bent of the Established Church Avho ' humbles and mum- 
bles ' as old Latimer says, over his liturgy and text, — here 
is a man who says the complete immersion, or something of 
that kind, of adults is necessary to baptism. These are his 
faults of doctrine ; but if I were the examining chaj)lain of 

the Archbishop of I would say, ' May it please your 

Grace, here is a man able to preach eloquently; able to 
fill the largest church in England with his voice, and, 
what is more to the purpose, with people. And may it please 
your Grace, here are two churches in the metropolis, St. Paul's 
and Westminster Abbey. What does your Grace think of 
inviting Mr. Spurgeon, this heretical Calvinist and Baptist, 
who is able to draw ten thousand after him, just to try his 
voice some Sunday morning, in the nave of either of those 
churches?'" 

If this suggestion had been adopted, and if the spirit of it 
kad obtained, many years would have been added to the 



48 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

duration of the Establishment, and many souls would have 
heard the word of life ; but either wisdom or love or bold- 
ness was wanting. 

Providentially the church was saved from the curse of 
similar enterprises — an aspiring architect and a desire to 
erect something that shall be " a credit to the neighborhood." 
No doubt Mr. Spurgeon had a hand in the management, of 
whom the " Spectator " justly says : 

"He could give away like a prince; but he had the 
faculty, often so painfully absent from the clergy, whether 
Established or Nonconformist, of managing large pecuniary 
affairs. Thousands might be given him, and it was certain 
. . . that he would spend the money wisely, would waste 
none on ' fads,' and would have as clear a result for his cash 
as if he had been a shopkeeper buying stock." 

Throughout, faith and common sense w^onderfully kept 
step. The church records have this entry, January 6, 1861, 
signed by the pastor and the deacons : 

"This church needs rather more than four thousand 
pounds to enable it to open the New Tabernacle free of all 
debt. It humbly asks this temporal mercy of God, and 
believes that for Jesus' sake the prayer will be heard and 
the boon bestowed." 

Mr. Spurgeon would not enter the house till it was free of 
debt. May 6, of the same year, there appears the following 
entry : 

"We, the undersigned, members of the church lately 
worshiping in New Park Street Chapel, but now assembling 
in the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington, desire with 
overflowing hearts to make known and record the loving- 
kindness of our faithful God. We asked in faith ; but the 
Lord has exceeded our desires, for not only was the whole 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 51 

sum given us, but far sooner than we had looked for it. 
Truly the Lord is good and worthy to be praised. ... To 
Father, Son and Holy Ghost, we offer praise and thanks- 
giving, and Ave set our seal that God is true." 

The building complete cost thirty-one thousand three 
hundred and thirty-two pounds, four shillings, ten pence, 
about one hundred and fifty-three thousand dollars. It has 
a main hall with room for six thousand without excessive 
crowding, a lecture room holding nine hundred, a school 
room holding one thousand, six class rooms, kitchen, lava- 
tory, and retiring rooms, ladies' working room, young men's 
class room, secretary's room, three vestries, for pastor, dea- 
cons, and elders, and three store rooms. 

As the raising of the money was an act of faith and 
prayer, so the same spirit prevailed in the erection and com- 
pletion of the building. One evening, while the work was 
under way, after the workmen had gone, Mr. Spurgeon 
with Deacon Cook kneeled amid the piles of brick and 
planks, asking that God would give prosperity to the work 
of building, Avould preserve the lives of the men employed, 
and would make the house when completed a blessing. All 
the prayers were abundantly granted. The first service held 
in the Tabernacle, March 18, 1861, was a prayer meeting, led 
by the pastor, at which more than a thousand were present. 

The first sermon was preached by the pastor, Monday, 
March 25. On the following day, there was a public meet- 
ing, at which Sir Henry Havelock Allan (son of Gen. 
Henry Havelock) presided. On the following day a meet- 
ing was held, which was addressed by representatives of 
various evangelical denominations. Other meetings followed, 
at one of which Rev. John Spurgeon, the pastor's father, 
presided. 



52 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

And now, with new facilities, with new courage, with a 
new degree of faith built on God's fulfilled promises, with 
an army of helpers flushed with confidence in God, began a 
new era in Mr. Spurgeon's ministry. 

For the sake of unity, we have omitted many events 
which in order of time belong to the years 1854-1861. 

In the fall of 1854, a sermon upon "Harvest Time" 
attracted much attention, and when published, had a large 
circulation. Another sermon followed on "God's Provi- 
dence." The success of these printed sermons led to the 
weekly issue, beginning January, 1855, of " The New Park 
Street Pulpit," afterwards changed to " The Metropolitan 
Pulpit." 

For thirty-seven years the issue has continued, each 
number containing one (sometimes two) sermon. This 
enterprise has added greatly to the labors of Mr. Spurgeon. 
Every sermon as reported was carefully revised by him on 
Monday, and then the proof corrected on Tuesday. But 
the increased usefulness paid for the labor. The sermofis 
have had a circulation of twenty-five thousand weekly, 
though sometimes rising much higher. They have been 
scattered in every continent and every land. They have 
been reprinted in volumes, in newspapers and in maga- 
zines beyond number. Reports of conversions resulting 
from the reading of the sermons came from America, from 
Canada, from Australia, from New Zealand, from the mines, 
from the sea, from the prison, from the hospital. In many 
instances, the sermons were adopted by clergymen of the 
Anglican Church, who have recorded a marked increase of 
interest in their congregations. 

In July, 1855, Mr. Spurgeon visited Scotland. His name 
had preceded him, and he was welcomed with intense and 



LIFE OF SPURGEON: 53 

universal enthusiasm, preaching the same gospel which had 
thundered from the pulpit of Knox. 

On the evening of September 4, of the same year, he 
preached in the open air in Hackney to twelve thousand 
people, on " Heaven and Hell." 

In 1857, upon the Day of Fasting for the disasters in 
India, he preached in the Crystal Palace at Sydenham to 
an audience estimated at twenty to twenty-four thousand. 

In 1856, he was present at the jubilee of his grandfather. 
Rev. James Spurgeon, pastor at Stambourne, and preached ; 
perhaps giving occasion for the venerable man to repeat 
once more : 

" My grandson can preach the gospel better than I can ; 
but he cannot preach a better gospel." 

On January 8, 1856, Mr. Spurgeon was married to Miss 
Susannah Thompson, the lady who, as stated in a pre- 
vious chapter, was persuaded to go to the New Park Street 
Chapel to help make an audience to greet the strange min- 
ister from Essex, and who, as we write, mourns for the kind- 
est of husbands and the noblest of men, amid a sympathy 
such as was never exceeded in its depths and tenderness and 
universality. 



CHAPTER III. 

THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE. 

rriHUS he began a ministry which, whether we consider 
-L its circumstances, its results, or the mental and moral 
traits which it evidenced, has no parallel. The congregations, 
overflowing at first, continued to tax the great house. To 
the end of Mr. Spurgeon's life, the only question as to a con- 
gregation was : " How many will the house contain ? How 
many will his voice reach ? " 

But we are interrupted by the criticism of those who hold 
that the popular judgment is necessarily false, and that they 
have pronounced the severest and most crushing condemna- 
tion of a ministry or a sermon when they have said : " It is 
popular; it is sensational." They would be pleased if 
the Revisers had written in the margin opposite the clause, 
"The common people heard him gladly," the annotation, 
" Many good manuscripts omit these words." An Anglican 
rector said to Rev. C. H. Woolston : " Spurgeon has been 
a curse ; he has been so sensational." 

But, before we condemn a ministry because it is popular 
and sensational, it is worth while to ask, " Upon what was 
the popularity based ? Did the preacher modify his utter- 
ances to please the populace ? Did he dilute or adulterate 
the gospel ? Did he sacrifice truth ? What was the char- 
acter of the sensations ? And were they mere sensations, or 
did they lead to action ? And, if to action, to what action ? 

No one can deny that Mr. Spurgeon preached Calvinism 
54 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 55 

without omitting or softening a single feature. He did not 
call sin by mild names. He did not cover the bottomless 
pit. Over and over again, he distinctly and consciously 
periled his popularity and stood ready, for the sake of what 
he regarded as truth, to break with his supporters and his 
best friends, both without and within the denomination. 

His preaching did create a sensation. Alas, if it had not ! 
All preaching that is preaching creates a sensation, from 
Isaiah and Jonah down to Edwards and Whitefield, and 
Finney and Spurgeon. Herein lies the difference between 
a " study " and a " sermon." A study informs the mind ; a 
sermon informs but also moves to action. Mr. Spurgeon's 
discourses were sermons. 

They moved the conscience ; they led men to Christ. In 
1854, the church numbered 313 ; the following year, 595 ; 
the next year, 860 ; in 1857, 1,046 ; and so it continued 
until in 1875, it numbered 4,813. Had no members been lost 
by death and otherwise in the meantime, it would have 
numbered 8,000. In 1886, the deacons found, on examining 
the church records, that the number received as converts by 
Mr. Spurgeon, not including those by letter, was 10,809. 

"And I only wish," said Mr. Spurgeon, in mentioning this 
fact, " that it had been twenty thousand." 

By the time of his death, the number was increased by 
several thousands. And if to these were added the great 
army led to Christ by reading his sermons, or by hearing 
them from other pulpits, how are the words of our Lord ful- 
filled : " Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much 
fruit ; so shall ye be my disciples." 

As to the character of those whom he gathered into the 
church, it is attested by the tender and sympathizing love 
which prevailed between pastor and people, by the constant 



56 LIFE OF ISFURGEON. 

acts of benevolence and sacrifice with which they answered 
his calls upon them, and by the Spirit of devotion which 
pervaded the prayer meetings. 

But perhaps it is implied that his preaching was adapted 
to catch the ear of the ignorant only. 

Francis Wayland, about 1857, wrote to his son : 

I have been reading several sermons in Spurgeon's new 
volume. I am struck with several things ; first, the mani- 
fest truthfulness of the man, arising from his perfect belief 
in all that he says. The truths of religion are as much a 
verity to him as his own existence. Second, his intimate ac- 
quaintance with the whole Bible. It bubbles up everywhere 
as soon as he begins to speak. He uses it with great power 
to express his own ideas. Third, as a result of this, is his 
manner of making a sermon. He does not draw an abstract 
idea out of the text, but expands and illustrates the very 
text itself. It opens to him a train, or several trains of 
thought, Avhich he illustrates from ever}i;hing around him. 
It is owing to this that he has so great variety. Were he to 
deduce abstract propositions, he would of necessity often re- 
peat himself Fourth, he takes the very range of ihe 
thoughts of his hearers. They therefore all follow him. 
And then again, while he is accused of egotism, he seems to 
me to forget himself and his reputation more than any man I 
know of. He seems not to care what people say of him or 
do to him, if he can only convert them. 

In 1867, General Garfield, who was elected President in 
1880, attended the Tabernacle and wrote in his journal 
(" Century Magazine," 1883) : 

I did not intend to listen to Spurgeon as to some lusus 
naturae, but to try to discover what manner of man he was, 
and what Avas the secret of his power. . . .At half-past 
eleven Spurgeon came in, and at once offered a short, simple, 
earnest prayer, and read and helped the whole congregation 
to sing Watts' stirring hymn : 

There is a land of pure delight. 



LIFE OF SFURGEON. 57 

For the first time in my life I felt some sympathy with 
the doctrine that would reject instrumental music from church 
worship. There must have been five thousand voices join- 
ing 111 the hymn. The whole building was filled and over- 
flowed with the strong volume of song. The music made 
Itself felt as a living, throbbing presence, that entered your 
nerves, brain, heart, and filled and swept you away in its 
resistless current. 

After the singing, he read a chapter of Job, and then a 
contrasted passage from Paul, both relating to life and death. 
He accompanied his reading with familiar and sensible, 
sometimes expositional, comments; then followed another 
hymn, a longer prayer, a short hymn, and then the sermon 
from a text in the chapter he had read in Job 14 : 14, "All 
the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change 
T"^?;''i "^^ evidently proceeded upon the assumption that 
the Bible, all the Bible, in its very Avords, phrases, and sen- 
tences, is the Avord of God ; and that a microscopic exami- 
nation of It will reveal ever-opening beauties and blessings. 
All the A\4iile, he impresses you with that, and also with the 
livmg fullness and abundance of his faith in the presence 
of God and the personal accountability of all to him. An 
unusual fullness of belief in these respects seems to me to 
he at the foundation of his poAver. Intellectually he is 
marked by his ability to hold with great tenacity, and pursue 
with great persistency any line of thought he"^chooses. He 
makes the most careful and painstaking study of the subject 
in hand. No doubt fully as much of his success depends 
upon his labor, as upon his force of intellect. He has chosen 
the doctrines and the literature of the Bible as his field and 
does not allow himself to be draAvn aside. He rarely wan- 
dei;s into the fields of poesy, except to find the stirrino- hymms 
winch may serve to illustrate his theme. He uses Bible 
texts and incidents with great readiness and appropriate- 
ness, and directs all his power, not toward his sermon but 
toAvard his hearers. His arrangement is clear, logical' and 
perfectly comprehensible; and at the end of each main 
division of the sermon, he makes a personal application of 
the truth developed, to his hearers, and asks God to bless it 
Mis manner is exceedingly simple and unaffected. He does 
not appear to be aAvare that he is doing a great thino- and I 
could see no indication that his success has turned his head 



58 LIFE OF SPUEGEON. 

He has the word-painting power quite at his command, but 
uses it sparingly. I could see those nervous motions of the 
hands and feet which all forcible speakers make when pre- 
paring to speak ; and also in the speaking, the sympathy 
between his body and his thoughts which controlled his 
gestures, and produced those little touches of theatrical 
power, which are so effective in a speaker. . . . 

Every good man ought to be thankful for the work 
Spurgeon is doing. I could not but contrast this worship 
with that I saw a few days ago at AVestminister Abbey. In 
that proud old mausoleum of kings, venerable with years 
and royal pride, the great organ rolled out its deep tones, 
and sobbed and thundered its grand music, mingled with 
the intoning of the hired singers. Before the assembly of 
rich and titled worshipers, sat a choir of twenty persons. 
The choir boys in their white robes had been fighting among 
the tombs and monuments of the nave just before the ser- 
vice began. However devout and effective their worship 
may be, it is very costly, and must be confined, to a great 
extent, to the higher classes. I felt that Spurgeon had 
opened an asylum where the great untitled, the poor and 
destitute of this great city, could come and find their sorrows 
met with sympathy ; their lowliness and longings for a b^etter 
life touched by a large heart and an undoubted faith. God 
bless Spurgeon ! He is helping to work out the problem of 
religious and civil liberty for England, in a way he knows 
not of. 

The following is the record of the impressions made by 
a visit in 1881, and in 1886 : 

April 3, 1881. — The service was to begin at eleven. One 
of the door-keepers told me that if I would wait a little while, 
I should be given a seat. With a view to enlisting him in my 
behalf in the matter of a seat, I offered him a shilling, which 
he declined, saying, " We do not do that here." You might 
have knocked me down with the smallest pin-feather. All 
over the kingdom, the officials of the richest church in 
Christendom stand with outstretched palm, ready to receive 
shillings and sixpences for showing the people the churches 



LI]iE OF SPURGEON. 59 

built with the people's own money, while this plain laboring 
man, in a church paid for by the pennies of working men 
and working women, refuses a shilling. The friendly and 
non-shilling-accepting doorkeeper directed me to an elderly 
man (Mr. Edward Bonstead, now deceased) who kindly gave 
me a very eligible seat in his pew in the first gallery, which 
is on a level with the pulpit, from which I could see and 
hear everything. This gentleman, a member of the church 
and a pew holder, was most hospitable throughout this and 
a later visit to England, always reserving for me a seat, as 
long as possible. At five minutes before eleven one of the 
ushei-s clapped his hands, and at once strangers took any seats 
they could find. A moment or two after eleven, Mr. 
Spurgeon came down the steps from his study, toward the 
pulpit, walking with some difficulty, and leaning upon the 
ends of the pews. While you w^ould hardly select him as a 
man of mark, yet his appearance is much more prepossessing 
than I expected. None of the pictures do him justice. 
There was none of the heaviness usually seen in the por- 
traits. The most admirable thing of all Avas the entire 
naturalness, the unconscious forgetfulness of self 

He read Komans 5 with running comments, brief 
and admirable. 

The prayer— it is difficult to sit in judgment on a 
prayer ; but I may say that for sweetness and simplicity, and 
sympathy, and depth of experience, and closeness of inter- 
course with God and forgetfulness of the presence of any- 
body else, I have never heard anything surpassing it. 

The sermon was from Romans 5:15: " Not as the offence, 
so also is the free gift." The old doctrine of Justification 
by Faith was made new and living, not by any novel state- 
ment, but by freshness and vividness of experience and 



60 LIFE OF 8PURGE0N. 

application, illustrating the truth, that if the doctrines seem 
to us worn out, it is because we have ceased to experience 
them. 

At the close of the service, I asked one of the deacons 
if Mr. Spurgeon cared to see any one after preaching. He 
said Mr. Spurgeon was usually so tired that he thought he 
would not. So I gave the deacon my card, just as a mark 
of respect, to let Mr. Spurgeon know that I had been there ; 
and I was going out, when I was called back and told that 
Mr. Spurgeon wanted to see me. He received me, an entire 
stranger, most cordially. In personal intercourse, he was 
as winning and as simple as in the pulpit. He said very 
simply, speaking of it as a plain matter of fact, " I am 
almost worn out." I urged his being absent for six months 
or a year. He said, " They are talking about that ; but it 
is hard to do it. There is so much on my hands ; and when 
I am away the money does not come in." I was distressed 
to see the marks of overwork and of too early age. 

On the afternoon of the same day I attended St. Paul's. 
There were perhaps one thousand persons present, seated in 
a portion of the immense nave. The introductory service, 
which is known, I believe, distinctly as worship, lasted an 
hour. Of this service, I heard distinctly six words. Of 
the sermon, by Canon Liddon, an elderly, fine-looking man, 
I heard perhaps one-fifth, and that by the most watchful 
attention. 

St. Paul's cost originally seven hundred and forty thou- 
sand pounds, which, in the seventeenth century, represented 
two or three times that amount now. Enlargements and re- 
pairs have swelled the cost to millions of pounds. I do not 
know how much it costs annually to run it ; but it takes one 
dean, four canons, thirty prebendaries, twelve minor canons, 



LIFE OF iSPUEGEON. 61 

and six vicars, besides an army of singers and other officials^ 
All this to enable a thousand people not to hear. The 
Tabernacle cost thirty thousand pounds. I will not enlarge 
upon the comparison. 

On Thursday evening, April 14, I found perhaps one 
thousand five hundred at the Tabernacle. The sermon was 
from Colossians 3 : 15 : " And let the peace of God rule in 
your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body ; 
and be ye thankful." 

It was not a " talk," such as some ministers, in some dis- 
tant continents, or in some other planet, might give on a 
week-day evening. It was a consecutive train of thought 
and feeling, and struck me as showing more power than 
the Sunday sermon. I will give the plan, from the scrap of 
paper which Mr. Spurgeon afterward, at my request, gave 

me. 

Colossians 3 : 15. 

The prevalence of trouble, quarreling, discontent, dis- 
quietude. 

Is it the East Wind ? Is it a low state of grace ? 

Oh, that we knew a remedy for it ! Pills for the earth- 
quake. We have no empiric here, but the good Physician 

I. Possess the peace of God. 

1. Peace with God by Christ, as to spirituals. 

2. Peace with God, as to all providences. 

3. Peace, such as God commands and approves. 

4. Peace, such as he works in the soul. 

5. Peace, perfect, lasting, deep, divine. 

II. Let it occupy the throne. 

1. There must be rule, to be peace. 

2. Call for its power to put down all turbulence. 

3. Yield to its umpireship. 

4. Let its poAver be constant. 

5. Especially over the affections. 



62 LIFE OF SPURGEOX. 

III. Strengthen yourself with arguments. 

1. You can only so be yom-self happy in heart. 

2. Only thus can the church prosper. 

3. Only thus can God be glorified. 

4. To this ye are called. 

5. Ye are one body. 

6. Cast yourself upon God and see that peace he works. 

IV. Occiqnj your mind healthily. 

1. AYith thankfulness to God. 

2. With thankfulness to others. 

3. With a general amiability. 

The sermon was textual rather than topical, though it 
partook of both characters. JSIr. Spurgeon let himself out a 
little more than he does on Sundays, gave a little more play 
to his sympathies, and spoke rather more familiarly. At one 
or two points there was an audible smile, as when he spoke 
of persons who ascribed their troubles to the east wind, and 
when he said, in allusion to the need of rule, in order to have 
peace, " A great many persons have been much troubled this 
week, in making out the census papers, to know who was the 
head of the family." 

He brought out, Avithout any pedantry, the force of the 
word rendered rule as meaning to act as umpire. The peace 
of God is to settle all disputed questions in the soul. This 
was just at the time of the war with the Boers ; and he spoke 
very strongly of the love of war and of the cry of many 
Britons, " Cut up the Dutch ; cut the Boers ; there is no glory 
unless we Avade up to the Avaist in blood." 

One of the deacons told me that Avhen Mr. Spurgeon began 
this Thursday evening service there Avere a fcAV hundred in 
attendance, but gradually the attendance is increasing. This 
result is not accomplished by scolding those AAdio come. 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 63 

because others do not come, but by another method, on 
which I am not sure there is any patent. 

Rev. Brooks Lambert, M. A., of the Established Church, 
has recently been preaching, on Sunday evenings, at Bish- 
opsgate Church, a series of lectures on " The Church and 
Dissent ; or. Dissent fi'om a Churchman's point of View." 
In alluding to the Baptists, he spoke of Bunyan, of Carey, 
who inaugurated missions, and of " Spurgeon, who, whatever 
else might be said about him, has revolutionized modern 
preaching." 

Sept. 26, 1886.— To-day found me in the Tabernacle. 
Mr. Spurgeon was looking well, and his voice is, as ever, full, 
strong, rich. He read Psalm 30, and his comments were 
delightful. As he comments, you say : " Yes, that is in the 
verse plain enough ; I wonder that I never saw it before ; " 
but you never did, you know. Thus, on verse 1, " I will extol 
thee, O Lord, for thou hast lifted me up," he said, " When 
God lifts us up, we ought to lift him up ; if he is our physi- 
cian, we ought to pay him the fee of our praise." On verse 
4, " Sing praises unto the Lord, O ye saints of his," " The 
good man does not feel that his own voice is enough ; he 
wants all to praise God." Verse 5, " His anger is but for a 
moment ; . . . weeping may endure for the night," etc. ; " Be 
patient, you that are in the night ; the morning will soon be 
here ; God does let out his anger toward his children some- 
times, as the tender father toAvard an erring child ; but it is 
not a killing anger." Verse 6, " I said in my prosperity I 
shall never be moved ; " " Very foolish in you, David ; but 
that is the way with u^ all." Verse 7, " Thou didst hide thy 
face, I was troubled " ; " That child of God who is not troubled 
when God hides his face, is in a bad way." Verse 8, " I cried 
unto thee, O Lord ; " " Prayer comes in well at all times, when 



64 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

you see God, and when you do not see him." Verse 11, 
" Thou hast loosed my sackcloth and girded me with glad- 
ness ; " "A wonderful expression ; God did not gird him with 
the emblem of gladness, but with gladness itself; our sorrows 
are only seeming ; our joys are real." Verse 12, " To the end 
that," etc. " See what is the purpose for which God gives you 
a joyful mind ; that you may praise him." " My God ; " " You 
must have a personal knowledge of God or else you will 
never praise him aright." 

Then he read Psalm 39. Verse 2, " I was dumb with 
silence ; " " That is just like us ; when we try to do a right thing, 
we overdo it, and make it a wrong, thing ; it was right to 
keep his mouth with a bridle ; it was wrong to be dumb." 
Verse 4, ' Lord make me," etc. ; " When he did speak, it was 
not to men, but to God." Verse 7, " What wait I for ? " " Yes, 
that is the question ; what am I waiting and looking for ? " 
'' My hope is in thee.'' " Happy man ! " Verse 8, " Deliver 
me from all my transgressions ; " " They are my worst ene- 
mies, my greatest danger." Verse 9, " I was dumb ; " " Some- 
times it is a good thing for a child of God to be dumb ; but 
it is a better thing to say, * The Lord gave, and the Lord 
hath taken away ; blessed be the name of the Lord.' " Verse 
12, " I am a stranger with thee ; " " Not a stranger to thee ; 
God and I are both strangers in this world; God is a 
stranger in the world which he has made." 

I think I never heard any one else read the Scripture 
and comment on it as he does. You feel that, from this time, 
that passage will be a new chapter to you ; that there will 
be new light on it as often as you open to it. 

The morning sermon was from Job 30 : 23 : "I know 
that thou wilt bring me to death," etc. Among the points 
>vere these : We have here a piece of personal knowledge, 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 65 

the certainty of death ; and a piece of holy intelligence : 
Thou wilt bring me to death ; God will be with us in death ; 
and if he brings us to death, he will bring us to life again. 
How we may be freed from the fear of death. Let us be 
humble ; let us be diligent. These are awful words ; but 
they are the words of Jesus, and therefore I must quote 
them : " In hell, he lifted up his eyes, being in torments." 
There is no nonsense here about " the larger hope." These 
are the words of one who loved you more than these 
philosophers do. 

After the sermon, I went in to have a moment with the 
honored preacher. He had noticed me in the audience and 
was expecting me. He said, " You are quite large enough to 
be seen with the naked eye." Nothing could be more kind 
than his greeting. He had been hard at work now since 
March; he will go away in November to escape the fog. 
He gave me the welcome news that Mrs. Spurgeon is much 
better. The Lord has heard the many loving prayers 
offered for her by the thousands who have been blessed by 
the labor of her hands and heart and head. 

In the evening, as in the morning, he gave notice of the 
church meetings ; of a meeting to give thanks for the re- 
covery of a dear brother who has had a serious and danger- 
ous illness ; of an inquiry meeting conducted by the pastor, 
and another by the deacons; of the weekly sermon on 
Thursday evening, followed by baptisms. If any one 
thinks that the church does not have pastoral care, he is 
greatly mistaken. 

In the morning prayer, many subjects had been em- 
braced — the nation, the great city, the United States, missions. 
But in the evening, there were but two subjects of prayer, 
God's children and unsaved sinners. The prayers were most 



(36 LIFE OF SFURGEON. 

devotional, earnest, uplifting. I wondered anew at those 
who want a set ritual for the Lord's house. 

The text was Judges 16 : 22 : " How^beit, the hair of his 
head began to grow again." The growth of Samson's hair 
was treated as a symbol of the return of the backslider. 
The text was a little quaint, and the whole sermon was 
sure to fix the attention. There was wonderful closeness, di- 
rectness, revealing the inner soul of man. It seemed to 
me that every one in the vast audience must leel himself 
personally addressed. Now and then there was a gleam of 
humor, not distracting or dissipating, but adding to the 
effect, and relieving from fatigue. There was also, what I 
do not remember on former occasions, a certain something 
that called out now and then a response from some earnest 
soul. What a foolish prejudice there is against responses. 
A response is all right, if it is printed in a book, and read 
out ; but it is all wrong, if it is forced from the soul by pro- 
found emotion. 

As I rode home on top of the omnibus, I was interested 
in this illustration of the far-reaching influence of the 
Tabernacle pulpit. Sitting next me. was a Scotch-Irish Pres- 
b}i;erian from Londonderry; next him was a Methodist 
missionary lady (American), laboring in China, now on her 
way back thither ; and I was from the Western Hemisphere. 

It illustrates the power of his personality that the 
omnibus driver or conductor, if you ask him, " Do you go 
to the Elephant and Castle?" answei-s, "We go right by 
Spurgeon's ; set you down at the door." 

Notes of a sermon preached by Mr. Spurgeon on Sun- 
day morning, July 19, 1885, are kindly furnished by Rev. 
Dr. J. G. Walker, w^ho was present on the occasion, and to 
whom the manuscript was subsequently given. 



\ 



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^' lUwiol S^futfiL it' ^ to ar&x^e^ ^nJlrtxry^e^htlLly 

fi7 



67 



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Zl ^_ /^^ /^SS^rrr, cj^ /{t inters . 

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J . G~c<l ^Y Y"^^^ ^^nks IncJ^^^S^^rM, If (Tit 



LIFE OF SPURGFOK. 69 

To one hearing bim again, after an interval of five and 
a half years, his preaching seemed to have gained in depth, 
in tenderness, in a grasp of the spirit of the Scripture, in 
breadth of sympathy. I cannot at all agree with those who say 
that his earliest sermons were just as good as those of mature 
life. Although I did not hear him in his youth, I can fully 
sympathize with Prof T. H. Pattison, D. D., of Rochester 
Theological Seminary, who heard him in the long ago, in 
Exeter Hall, and who writes : 

As I look back on the slight young fellow, moving rap- 
idly across the platform, full of assurance and on familiar 
terms with ever}i;hing seen and unseen, it is only to contrast 
him with the Spurgeon of later days, deliberate, reverent, 
almost awe-struck in the presence of God in prayer, and too 
deeply in earnest to trifle for a single moment. 

One marked feature of the preaching in the Tabernacle 
was its evenness ; there was not much to mark one sermon 
from another, save as each seemed an advance on those 
which had gone before. But one sermon became at once 
historic. On June 5, 1864, Mr. Spurgeon preached on 
" Baptismal Regeneration." Probably never did he preach 
under a more urgent and irresistible sense of duty. He saw 
that a lamentable error on a vital point was spreading 
through the Anglican Church ; that this Church was strong 
and wealthy, crowned with social honors and allied with the 
power of the State, made no difference. He was pressed in 
the spirit. 

If I should provoke some hostility ; if I should, through 
speaking what I believe to be the truth, lose the friendship 
of some and stir up the enmity of more, I cannot help it. 
The burden of the Lord is uj^on me, and I must deliver my 
soul. I have been loath enough to undertake the work, but 
I am forced to it by an awful and overwhelming sense of 
solemn duty. 



70 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

In giving the manuscript of his sermon to Lis publishers, 
he said : 

" This sermon will perhaps wholly put an end to the cir- 
culation of my sermons." 

But the result was far otherwise. The sermon reached the 
tremendous circulation of three hundred thousand. It called 
out replies and rejoinders to the number of a hundred. The 
preacher was informed by the officious (and we may almost say 
" too previous ") Secretary of the Evangelical Alliance, that he 
must retract his words or withdraw from the Alliance ; Mr. 
Spurgeon promptly did the latter. As he had feared, many 
of the most pious of the Low Church clergy were deeply 
grieved. But he had done his duty. And rarely has a man 
done his duty against greater odds. 

Apart from the every other consideration, he had won a 
great victory in establishing his own spiritual freedom. If 
he had weakly withheld his word of protest, when con- 
science bade him speak, he would no longer have .been 
Spurgeon. He would have been in chains. Certainly he 
would never have a mightier battle to fight. 



CHAPTER IV. 

MR. SPURGEON, THE PREACHER. 
By Pres. H. G. Weston, D. D., LL. D.i 

ri1HE greatest preacher since the days of the apostles ! 
J- This has been my judgment for years. Take your 
seat in the gallery of the Tabernacle, at the left hand of 
Mr. Spurgeon, and look on the congregation. Every foot 
of space is occupied. Through the open door opposite, you 
can see a company of listeners, unable to enter the house, 
standing patiently throughout the service. Other preachers 
have drawn as great a crowd as this, but here is a man who, 
ministering for thiii:y-eight years to one congregation, 
has not seen a Sunday during that time in which his audi- 
ence has not been limited only by the size of the building. 
He has used no arts to draw hearers ; he has preached no 
sensational sermons, has presented no novel ideas, has adver- 
tised no subjects, has taken no pains to make himself known ; 
yet for more than a generation there has been no fluctuation 
of his power and popularity, no ebb in the steady tide, no 
variation in the strength of his hold upon the people. On 
what page of Christian history can this be paralleled ? 

His success is all his own. He came to London, an un- 
known youth, to take charge of an enfeebled church, in a 
denomination which had no social prestige, with nothing in 
the surroundings to attract and hold a congregation. He 

^The author of the vohinie congratulates the reader that " Mr. Spurgeon, the 
Preacher "' is treated by one who is himself, not only an instructor in the art of 
preaching, but also a master of the most divine of arts. 

71 



72 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

attained celebrity at once as a boy-preacher — a youthful 
prodigy. In this be was not singular . His singularity con- 
sisted in bis superiority to all tbe temptations of youthful 
phenomenal success, in the more than fulfillment of the 
promise of his opening ministry, so that his maturity, sim- 
ple, intense, devout, was as unique and wonderful as his boy- 
hood. 

Look on this congregation. Its composition is as mar- 
velous as its size. There are very few in the great crowd 
whom I know, but I see one of the most eminent Presbyter- 
ian laymen in the United States, a trustee of Princeton ; 
yonder a Methodist bishop from America. There is a prom- 
inent Episcopalian ; by his side a literary gentleman of no 
avowed religious faith. A casual inquiry brings out the 
fact that the man who sits next to me is from Australia ; 
my neighbor on the other side is from one of our Western 
Territories. I do not know the Englishmen. I recognize 
only the red coats of some bright looking young soldiers, 
scattered through the crowd, but I am informed that all 
ranks and classes may be found in occasional attendance on 
the Tabernacle. At this moment there occurs to me the 
names of Ruskin, who speaks of " sitting under Mr. Spur- 
geon with much edification for a year or two ; " of Principal 
TuUoch, who, in a letter to his wife, gives a long and glow- 
ing description of a sermon of Spurgeon's as " about the 
most real thing I have come in contact with for a long 
time." 

Other men have preached to admiring hearers, but 
their sermons, when printed, have been read with disappoint- 
ment, or have attained a circulation among a limited class. 
The sermons of this man are read in every tongue in which 
Christian truth is presented. No other preacher of the gos- 



J 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 73 

pel has ever addressed so many of his fellow men on the 
things of salvation. Other men have died, and their thou- 
sands of adherents have bewailed the loss of their leader ; 
other men have died, and those who were allied to them by 
nationality, or faith, or work, have deeply mourned their 
departure ; but when has the preacher died whose death has 
so touched thousands who neither in race, or creed, or sect, 
were bound to him? In London, last summer, for weeks, 
every daily paper, morning or evening, had its regular tele- 
gram of Mr. Spurgeon's condition. At the door of this Bap- 
tist preacher — and only in England can the full force of 
these two words be understood — were left inquiries and mes- 
sages of sympathy from representatives of every rank and 
class in the kingdom, the highest dignitaries in the State 
and in the church giving expression to the common sympa- 
thy and sorrow. Where will you look for another instance 
of a grief so catholic and universal ? 

How do you account for all this ? What is the explana- 
tion of this place in the hearts of the people ? Of course, 
it all sprang from his preaching. His pulpit was the centre 
and source of his hold upon men. What was the secret of 
his power there ? Ah ! how many times has this question 
been asked ! how many of us have set ourselves to study this 
great problem ! with what earnest diligence have we sought 
its solution ! 

Let us take our seat again, and look, and hear, and 
think. One thing is at once evident ; the preacher puts 
every hearer at perfect ease. Everything is so restful. He 
makes no draft on his congregation. His voice, clear as a 
silver bell, exactly fills the room. At the extreme rear of 
the house, in spite of the roar of trams and omnibuses and 
hansoms, his words all come clear and distinct. You do not 



74 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

strain your ear ; he does not strain his throat. He does not 
draw on your sympathies by a painful effort to make you 
hear ; you are not vexed with the noisy crowd outside. You 
could not listen more contentedly if you and* he were in a 
drawing room. Then his style is perfect: in pure, per- 
spicuous, racy, idiomatic English, he so speaks that you do 
not have to give him your attention, or keep your mind on 
what he is saying ; you cannot help heai'ing, you cannot help 
understanding. He is very far from being voluble, yet he 
never hesitates for a word, and never recalls a word. You 
have no anxiety as to his finding just the word he wants. 
His style is the perfection of English speech. 

He is no orator ; if he were, he would necessarily repel 
those who would not fancy the style of oratory adopted. 
But he stands and talks with you. Sometimes for a quarter 
of an hour together he makes no gesture. His manner is 
that of a dignified, easy conversation, such as would be 
adopted by good taste in a parlor, modified by the size of the 
room and the number of listeners. It is the ideal of oral 
address. 

The matter of his discourse exhibits the characteristics 
of its delivery. No effort is needed to grasp or to retain his 
thoughts ; you do not wish to stop and consider what he is 
saying or to ask what unsuspected bearings it may have. 
There is nothing suggestive about his sermon. The mind is 
filled just even full, nothing lacking, nothing running over. 
You keep step unconsciously with the speaker, never lagging 
and requiring to pull yourself up, never wandering off and 
obliged to bring yourself back again. 

His masterful repose is specially manifest in the sub- 
stance of his preaching. Over every field of thought which 
he touches, he walks at will ; everything is as clear as sunlight ; 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 75 

no penumbra troubles him with any difficulty of tracing the 
exact boundary which separates the true from the false. He 
easily conveys to others his own sense of the depth and 
richness of the truth, and never toils, as so many, with effort 
to impart his feeling to his hearers. He preaches his high 
Calvinistic theology with consummate ease to himself and his 
hearers — an ease as untroubled as if a difficulty on this sub- 
ject had never presented itself to a human being. 

But behind all this is his personality. This cannot be 
analyzed nor explained ; we can see only the manifestations. 
Its force is shoAvn in his voluminous publications with their 
world-wide circulation, in his Pastors' College, in his 
Orphanage. What he has accomplished in any one of these 
directions would be work enough and fame enough fo:r any 
man. Its generous sympathy, full of pathos and humor, not 
only prompts his great work, but, shown in all relations, 
attaches thousands to him in bonds of gratitude and friend- 
ship. Its rounded completeness is such that, living in the 
sunlight of publicity for a generation, no slander has ever 
flitted across the face of his fame. There has been no secret 
whisper of regret at the lack of some minor but very im- 
portant virtues, no apology with bated breath for obvious 
shortcomings. It is a personality with boundless force, with 
sympathy unselfish and universal, with a symmetry which 
seems to have no drawback and no defect. 

As you listen to Mr. Spurgeon, you are struck with what 
he does not say. As you continue to listen, you are more 
impressed with this peculiarity, until his denial of self ap- 
pears — one of his most marked characteristics. Observe I 
do not say self-denial — this is not a feature of Mr. Spurgeon's 
life. I do not say self-forgetfulness, which, like self-denial, 
has often been exhibited in its highest forms outside of 



76 LIFE OF SPUEGEON. 

Christianity, but that denial of self, which so eminently 
characterized our Lord Jesus, and which is the. differentiat- 
ing feature of Christianity. He is reading a chapter in the 
prophecy of Isaiah. His comments, which are fully equal 
to his sermons in richness and power, show unmistakably 
that he knows a great deal more about that chapter than he 
tells. Any biblical student can see that he cannot have 
learned so much without learning a gi'eat deal more. Most 
of us smaller men could not restrain ourselves from seduc- 
tive by-paths, from giving at least a glimpse into opening 
vistas, very attractive to us and to some of our hearers. How 
resolutely he resists the temptation ! Why ? For the same rea- 
son that our Lord refrained from speaking of much in which 
he was intensely interested, and which would have deeply 
interested his disciples. The reticence of Christ is as instruct- 
ive as his speech. In this respect Mr. Spurgeon's sermons 
are framed in the spirit of the New Testament. How many 
times when hearinor him have I admired that denial of self 
which kept him so completely within the limits of what was 
most profitable for his congregation. 

Men complained of his narrowness ; but his narrowness 
was the narrowness of Niagara, the indispensable condition 
of power. Broaden Niagara into a lake and you have a 
shoal instead of a river. It Avas Mr. Spurgeon's denial of 
self that enabled him to present with such singular interest 
and power truths with which he had been intellectually 
familiar from the beginning of his ministry. 

A greater mistake cannot be made (I quote from the 
" Church Times," the organ of the English High Church) than 
that which speaks or thinks of Mr. Spurgeon as an unedu- 
cated man. In the strict sense of the word, Mr. Spurgeon 
was not a scholar. With very rare exceptions, no man can 



LIFE OF SPUR G EON. 77 

be who makes the pulpit his vocation. But Mr. Spurgeon 
was a diligent student of the Bible in its original languages. 
He taught Latin and Greek before he entered the pastor- 
ate in London, and those who were intimately acquainted 
with him say that his knowledge of all English literature 
was wonderful, and that in this respect no public man in 
England surpassed him. That he was very widely read in 
certain kinds of theological literature is manifest to any one 
who is acquainted with his published works. 

More than once I have taken my accustomed seat in the 
Tabernacle with a feeling of half regret that I am losing 
the brilliant discourse of some famous light of the British 
pulpit advertised for the morning. Why did I come here? 
I shall hear nothing that I do not already know; the ser- 
mon at St. Paul's, or Westminster Abbey, or wherever, will 
be a brilliant, thoughtful, original discourse, to be remem- 
bered for a lifetime. I cannot help a sort of grudge at 
this evident loss. 

With the first sentence spoken by Mr. Spurgeon, this 
feeling vanishes, to return no more. At once I am lifted to 
a higher plane, and begin to breathe a new and welcome at- 
mosphere. I am launched on the strong current of the 
preacher's spiritual feeling, and am borne on its tide, a will- 
ing voyager. His intense spiritual earnestness is apparent 
in the first sentence of the opening prayer. It is not a 
bodily earnestness, finding expression in a boisterous delivery 
or muscular agitation, not earnestness of voice or gesture- 
observe how quietly his hands often rest on the plain desk 
before him,— not the earnestness of exhortation. It is the 
spiritual earnestness of a man in communion with God, the 
consciousness of the Christian's position and relation, that 
joy of the Lord which is our strength. If I had gone to 



78 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

St. Paul's, the minister would have assumed that all present 
were afar from the Father's house ; his first words would 
have been, " I will arise and go to my Father ; " and then 
would have come the exhortation to confession of sin. But 
here, I am in my Father's house, I am seated at his table, 
all around me the air is stirred by the sweet music of home ; 
and Mr. Spurgeon's opening w^ords, like those of the Epis- 
tles, are a glad thanksgiving for the position of the wor- 
shiper : " Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in 
heavenly places in Christ, and hath raised us up together 
and made us sit together with him." In the grateful recog- 
nition of the believer's standing before God, the worship at 
the Tabernacle begins. Every word is surcharged with 
earnestness. Hymn, Scripture, prayer, are inspired with an 
all-pervading fervor, shaping thought and expression. 
Among other ways, it shows itself in a chain of reasoning 
knit in iron links and made red hot by fervency of passion ; 
a stream of compact, nervous, glomng speech, intensely 
clear and w^ell freighted with meaning. 

But above all other characteristics of Mr. Spurgeon's 
preaching is its spirituality. This gives it its universal and 
abiding power. He addresses himself to man, not to men. 
His sermons are remarkably devoid of an}i;hing peculiar to 
time, race, circumstance, or condition. About his delivery 
even, there is no suggestion of anything local or provincial. 
He does not talk in English fashion. He has not the accent 
or tone of English pulpits. Like the discourses of Christ, 
his sermons bear no special relation to the times in which 
they are preached, only as the moral aspects of the times 
aifect man's spiritual recovery. . . . Christ's discourses 
belonged no more to one age than to another, to no one class 



LIFE OF SPURGEOX. 79 

more than to another. The first century cannot say, " He is 
mine ; " the tenth century cannot claim him, nor the twen- 
tieth. Neither the rich nor the poor can say, " He is oui*s ; " 
he is not an Asiatic, he is not a European. He belongs 
alike to all times, and to all classes, and to all conditions. 
There is nothing in his teachings which does not bear direc- 
tion on the purpose for which he came into the world — to 
save his people from their sins. This purely spiritual char- 
acter of Mr. Spurgeon's preaching makes his sermons as 
profitable and welcome in Australia as in London, in the log 
cabin as in the crowded church. I happened, an hour or so 
ago, to glance at a discourse of his ; I do not know when it was 
preached, but every word in it would have been pertinent 
and appropriate two hundred years ago. If there shall be a 
twenty-second cantury and the sermon abides, it wdll be just 
as pertinent then as now. It is founded on the permanent 
facts of man's nature, and is addressed to man's spir- 
itual condition. Mr. Spurgeon has outlived the contempt 
and ridicule with which the newspapers treated him 
in the earlier part of his career; his critics kindly rec- 
ognize the surpassing force which has wrought so great 
and lasting work in his day and generation. But they com- 
plain that he is indifferent to many tendencies of life and 
thought in which intelligent men and women are profoundly 
interested, that he has no lot nor part in the intellectual and 
religious movement of the age, which, they say, is so com- 
pletely revolutionizing the world. They do not know that 
tliis very separation from the earthly and temporary is 
the hiding of his power His Christianity does not under- 
take to revolutionize the world by any intellectual or relig- 
ious movement, but to save men from the evil. It promises 
no blessing to men who do not accept Christ. Its one aim 



80 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

is to make men partakers of the divine nature. The Gospel 
which Mr. Spurgeon preached was the Gospel of that Lord 
Jesus who gave himself for our sins that he might deliver 
us from this present evil world. Sin personal and sin or- 
ganic, our sins and this present evil world, are the foes 
which he combated, and for victory over them he was con- 
tinually striving. 

Explain it as we may, the history of all great religious 
movements proves that the way to stir men to the utmost, to 
effect in them permanent and radical changes, is not to ad- 
dress their sense of earthly want, or to care for their earthly 
condition, but to appeal to the great eternal verities of sin 
and salvation, an appeal to which the profoundest depths of 
their nature respond. 

A minister goes into the pulpit and looks at the congre- 
gation which is about to listen to him in silence for an hour. 
How solemn the place ! No other gathering on earth is like 
it in variety of knowledge and condition. He cannot know 
them all ; is it possible in the common discourse to speak 
profitably to all these with their various ignorances, burdens, 
perplexities, sorrows, wants, and joys? Oh, to speak some 
word that shall meet the wants of those who are struggling 
with temptations, distressed with solicitudes and cares, some 
word that shall guide the perplexed, help the discouraged, 
comfort the sorrowing — some word that shall bring hope and 
peace and joy — some word that shall be a word in season 
alike to duty and conflict ! Is there any way of speaking 
so that all these classes shall have their appropriate word, 
that no one of Christ's hungry sheep shall go away unfed ? 
Spurgeon seems to have found it, in an earnestness begotten 
by the joyous possession of the whole man by Christ ; in a 
love for others which instinctively avoids all that will not 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 81 

profit, and instinctively chooses that which will minister to 
their highest edification ; and in a constant look, not at the 
seen and temporary, but at the unseen and eternal, always 
proclaiming spiritual things, in spiritual words, to spiritual 
men. 

The dominant and all-pervading spirituality of Mr. 
Spurgeon's convictions was the explanation of an apparent 
change in his later years in his relations to the sacramental 
party in the Church of England. I say apparent change, 
for his position and attitude were the same throughout. As 
is well known, within the last decade, the increasing preva- 
lence of the denial of the supernatural in religious circles 
greatly troubled him. It did not relieve his distress that 
the term ' spiritual ' was retained in religious speech. The 
word was shorn of its Scriptural meaning ; and the difference 
between secular and spiritual was denied. Because the 
natural was sacred and divine, therefore the supernatural 
did not exist. Whatever may be said of the sacramental 
party, they believe in a supernatural Christianity. Here 
Mr. Spurgeon and they were one. How to obtain super- 
natural grace was the point on which they separated, and 
widely separated. The one said. It was by sacraments ; the 
other. By faith in Christ. The one said, The sacraments, by 
divine appointment, lead to Christ ; the other, Christ is the 
divinely appointed way to the sacraments, as he is the way 
to all else. Whatever obscured the place of Christ, Mr. 
Spurgeon vehemently opposed; and so his fiercest blows 
were struck at the doctrine of Infant Baptismal Regeneration 
in his well-known onslaught on the baptismal service in the 
English Prayer Book. But when the question was between 
the supernatural and the anti-supernatural, his whole sym- 
pathies were with the people who with all their faults stood 



82 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

firmly on this foundation stone. He recognized the devout 
character, the godly earnestness of many of the prominent 
Ritualists. With only two exceptions, every one of the Tract- 
arian leaders had been brought up an Evangelical ; they 
carried the influence of their early training into their new 
associations, and in the midst of their ceremonies preached 
sermons which might, without the alterations of a word, 
have been uttered by the most flaming revival preacher. 
Read the biographies of Pusey, and Newman, and Manning ; 
where can you find what w^e call conversion more clearly 
claimed and insisted on ? Read the sermons of Archdeacon 
Manning, preached while he was a clergyman of the Estab- 
lished Church, and tell me where can you find clearer 
spiritual discrimination than in his discourses on the Tempta- 
tion of our Lord? Mr. Spurgeon was bound in strong 
sympathy with those who were one with him in the great, 
cardinal fact of the supernatural character of Christianity, 
while he difiered from them most widely in the method of 
attaining spiritual grace. Both his agreements and difier- 
ences were candidly and forcibly expressed. 



CHAPTER V. 

SPUEGEON, THE PREACHER (continued). 
Prof. T. H. Pattison, D. D. i 

TT7HEN Dr. Dale of Birmingham said that he could no 
* * more tell why Mr. Spurgeon was so great a preacher 
than why Turner was so great a painter, Napoleon so great 
a general, or Pitt so great a statesman, he gave expression 
to a very general feeling. In fact, when Mr. Spurgeon 
began to preach, his hearers under ordinary circumstances 
ceased to criticise. So truly was the preacher a messenger 
from God with a word for each one who listened to him, 
that every real man dropped the critic and listened. This 
was in part due to Mr. Spurgeon's intense personality. This 
solid substantial man, with no promise in his outward 
appearance of spiritual power, had perhaps more than any 
other man of his generation, what Emerson says that our 
earth waits for, " exalted manhood." No estimate of Mr. 
Spurgeon's power to move and mould men will be adequate 
unless it takes this into account. I venture to say that our 
century has produced no truer man. 

When we come to examine the special qualities by which 
he was distinguished, I think that we shall find them to be 
the qualities which we commonly associate with the Englisli- 

1 As Mr. Spurgeon was, above all else, the preacher, the author thinks himself 
happy in being favored also with a communication from the accomplished Pro- 
fessor of Homiletics in Rochester Theological Seminary, who has been for many 
years on terms of personal intimacy and friendship with him of whom he writes 
so appreciatively and so discriminatingly. 



84 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

man. Speaking of a lady who had translated many of his 
sermons into German, he said, in his pleasant way : " I shall 
never be turned into German myself, but she turns most 
of my books into German." Underneath the jest lay a pro- 
found truth. Mr. Spurgeon could not have been anything 
but what he was, the typical Englishman, with the excel- 
lences and the limitations of his race. He had the traits 
which we associate with the Saxon character. Dr. Parker 
has remarked on, " the forms and expression of the remark- 
able head and face, the head the very image of stubbornness, 
massive and broad, the face large, rugged, social, brightened 
by eyes overflowing with humor, and softened by a most 
gracious and sympathetic smile." 

The head and face was true to the English nature. Dutch 
blood there may have been in Mr. Spurgeon's veins, the 
blood of forefathers who escaped to East Anglia from the 
persecutions of the infamous Duke of Alva ; but this only 
added kindred vigor to the truly English stock. He^ had, 
for one thing, that trust in the people which from Alfred 
on down to our oAvn time had marked the Saxon, the confi- 
dence in the honor and honesty, the soundness and sagacity 
of the vox populi which makes England at this hour as truly 
a democracy as any nation on earth. " The instincts of the 
masses," he said, " can be much more safely relied upon than 
the caprices of the wealthy and tenured few." 

John Bright might have said this ; and the two men had 
much in common. Bright was, in his speaking, more of the 
artist, and studied far more than Spurgeon did the chime of 
words and the music of sentences. It was Spurgeon who 
said, " I hate oratory," and explained what he meant by 
adding, " Fine language seems to me wicked when souls are 
perishing." But Bright and Spurgeon alike relied mainly 



LIFE OF SPURGEON, 85 

as orators on the simplicity and vigor of the English tongue. 
To any one familiar with both of these great men, another 
characteristic which is generally supposed to distinguish the 
Englishman will occur at once. I mean that rare gift, the 
terror of fools and the delight of the wise, common sense. 
How often in the case of Mr. Spurgeon it sent the shafts of 
his wit straight home to their mark. It was with this that 
he met and silenced the clamor which was raised over his 
smoking and what he had said about it. His common sense 
cut the Gordion knot in other and happier discussions, and 
at a word made an end of all controversy. Listen to what 
he says as to the theatre : 

Our aim is to raise men entirely above all that, to ele- 
vate them to a higher level, where they will not feel the 
want of that kind of recreation. . . . We have seen too 
often the trail of the theatre across the Christian home to 
have the slightest doubt as to whether it is an institution 
which makes for righteousness or the reverse. ... If a man 
should come to me and say, " Mr. Spurgeon, may I go to the 
theatre ? " I should reply, " Do you want to go to the theatre ? 
If so, you must go, and take it as an evidence that you need 
grace in your heart ! " 

This sturdy common sense was a saving element in the 
stalwart independence which w^as another marked charac- 
teristic in Mr. Spurgeon, He was absolutely fearless. No 
one could ever charge him with moral cowardice. From 
the first he struck out his own path, and trod it confidently. 
Dr. Clifford has called attention to the fact that when he got 
rid of the pulpit, the change from that to the platform was 
" an illustration of the freedom which he sent into the min- 
istry of these later times." His first adventures in London, 
his earliest actions and utterances, bespake this fearless and 
independent nature. He once told me that he prepared 



86 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

for his first Sunday in New Park Street by purchasing a 
large colored pocket handkerchief, which he flourished 
when preaching with much effect, under the impression that 
to do so was the fashion in London society. But this was 
perhaps his last attempt to propitiate conventionalism, and 
it could hardly have answered its purpose. With the dea- 
cons of the church when after that first Sunday they invited 
him to preach again, he was as independent as though every 
pulpit in London was eager for him. He had a genuine 
Saxon hatred of all servility. 

"A clerical sycophant," says he " is only fit to be a scul- 
lion in the devil's kitchen." We seem to catch the times of 
Bunyan in this plain spoken utterance, and Avhen by-and- 
by a future generation forms from the composite photo- 
graph the portrait of the typical Englishman, Cromwell, 
Bunyan, Bright, and Spurgeon will all be pressed into the 
service. For Cromwell he had a hearty admiration. He 
would rather, he declared on one occasion, " have descended 
from Cromwell than have the bluest blood in his veins." 
In common with the great uncrowned king of England. 
Mr. Spurgeon prized most highly loyalty to conviction. As 
Mr. Archibald G. Brown has said : 

"God was an awful reality to him, and like Elijah, he 
stood before him. God filled up the whole of the horizon. 
Jesus was so absolutely his heart's Lord that tears came into 
his eyes when he spake of Christ. Jesus Christ had fasci- 
nated his heart." 

This made him exceedingly jealous for God, and for the 
gospel of his San. He could not brook any tampering with 
what he believed to be the saving truths. There is no good evi- 
dence that he regretted for one single moment his action in 
the Down-Grade Controversy. On the contrary, he avowed 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 87 

that had he not taken the decisive step when he did, " he 
would have been compelled to do so half a dozen times 
since." He resembled John Bright in this, that sooner than 
be false to his dearest convictions he would be parted from 
his dearest friends. Both men showed their faith by their 
works. 

" I would not give a headless pin," Spurgeon said once, 
" for the man who does not belong to that denomination 
which he conscientiously believes to be the best." And 
then he added, with characteristic sweetness, " But I have 
learned to love truth better than any sect, and Christ more 
than any church." 

For whilst he was very firm in holding to his convictions, 
and very outspoken in uttering them, his fine charity and his 
cheery good nature saved him from bitterness. The leading 
organ of the Church of England wrote about him : 

" He was no friend to the Church of England, but he 
was what is perhaps rarer, a straightforward and even gener- 
ous foe." 

Nor did any one ever with reason suspect him of self- 
seeking. He was as pure in heart and as clean of hand as 
Andrew Marvell, the incorruptible patriot. Dr. Maclaren 
said with truth : 

His fervor of devotion and intensity of love to the Lord 
Jesus Christ blazed through all his Avork. He was absolutely 
self-forgetful, and thinking nothing of himself, ever}iihing 
of his message. His pathos and his humor, his sagacity 
and his kindliness were equal. His power of cheery work 
was unexampled, and all that he was, he gave to his Lord 
with rare and beautiful, simplicity and faithfulness. 

Another prominent Saxon trait in Mr. Spurgeon's char- 
acter was his superiority to difficulties. So far from daunt- 
ing, they rather stimulated him. He never went to sleep, 



88 I^IFE OF SPURG1.0N. 

as Emerson puts it, " on the cushion of advantage." The 
Metropolitan Tabernacle was a triumph over material 
obstacles, and the victory was altogether due to him. He 
set aside committees and became a committee of one. He 
purchased the ground upon which the great building was 
planted with money advanced to him personally under most 
romantic circumstances. He refused to lift his voice in the 
place until every penny of debt upon it had been paid. In 
the years of buoyant health and boundless vigor, nothing 
seemed impossible. He as much as Napoleon struck " can- 
not " out of his vocabulary. One can scarcely refrain from 
wishing that such a man had been on board the Mayflower 
or seated in the first Continental Congress. The courage 
and determination, the loyalty to conviction and singleness 
of aim, the intense and yet thoroughly wholesome concen- 
tration of the whole nature upon the thing which has to be 
brought to pass, which have made Englishmen what they 
are to-day in the world's history — all these Mr. Spurgeon had 
to a very rare degree. 

His humor, too, was eminently Saxon. 

" You are the best deacon that any minister was ever 
blest with," he said *to one of his officers, " but don't be 
proud ; you are no better than you ought to be." 

On the last Sunday of his life here, when his secretary 
reminded him that the congregation at the Tabernacle 
would want to hear how he was getting on, his genial spirit 
responded, "Let them find out." One needs to see the 
twinkle in the kindly eye, and to catch the sweetness in the 
kindly voice, to understand how innocent his jesting words 
were of any intent to wound. Humor was used by him for 
its true purpose, and he never mistook it for invective 
When he unmasked sin, it was not . done with a jest. Sir 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 89 

was too serious a thing for wit to play with. Yet, with him 
as with Latimer and Bunyan and Thomas Fuller and Row- 
land Hill, humor was as natural as sunshine in June. The 
struggle, no doubt, w^as to keep it within bounds. A 
courtly minister was once in his company, when Spurgeon 
charged his brethren in London wdth treating him coldly 
in his first joining their number. 

" Oh, Mr. Spurgeon," the gentleman interposed, " I am 
sure you misrepresent us. I, for one, have never been other 
than friendly to you." 

" Doctor," was the reply, " do you remember charging me 
in those early days with being so high a Calvinist that I 
would not invite sinners to believe and be saved ? " The 
courtly brother had quite forgotten all about the circum- 
stance. "Yes, Doctor," Spurgeon said, turning his guns 
full on the foe, " and no doubt you forget alsa what I said 
in reply. Let me remind you. I said that so far from 
never inviting sinners when I was preaching, if you had 
been in the audience, I should certainly have been especially 
careful to do so." 

These, then, were some of the characteristics of a 
thoroughly English nature. Mr. Spurgeon had strong pop- 
ular sympathies and a simple faith in the sagacity of the 
one human heart ; he was gifted with manly and vigorous 
common sense ; he never courted a smile or feared the frown 
of any man ; he remained to the last loyal to his convic- 
tions, although the loyalty cost him not a little. If he 
was a hard hitter, he was a most generous opponent ; and 
he loved to preach up truth rather than to preach down 
error. 

"I am," he said to the Rev. Charles Williams, "no 
enemy, no disputant, no caviller. I only want to do the 



90 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

right thing, and if it should seem to be harsh, I want to do 
it in love and tenderness." 

Autocratic he was bound to be, alike from temperament 
and circumstances, and he put his policy in one sentence 
when he declared : 

" ' Lord, lead me not into temptation ' means to me * bring 
me not into a committee.' " 

He was as tender as he was strong. "A little anger," he 
said, " costs me so much, and is so apt to blaze into a battle 
royal that it is a calamity to be aroused, and an event mem- 
orably mournful." That fine humor was his Avhich plays on 
the surface of vigorous speech and determined action, and 
softens both. At heart he loved all good men, and won 
their love in return. The whole English nation had come 
to look on him, as they had come to look on John Bright, 
with pride, as not only in an especial sense theirs, but even 
in an especial sense them. It is surely to be numbered 
among the thousand good services for which the world is 
indebted to the great man who has passed away, that he did 
so much to perpetuate all the finest qualities of the nation 
which is proud to call him one of her sons. 

The following is from a letter on "Spurgeon as a 
Preacher," written by Professor Pattison in 1884, on the 
occasion of the Spurgeon Jubilee : 

" Not one hearer in a hundred knows anything of his 
personal character, of the charm of his nature, of his mar- 
velous power of generalship, of his Orphanage and College. 
To the great majority of those who listen to him, Mr. Spur- 
geon is simply a preacher. As a preacher, therefore, he 
may, with the utmost propriety, be studied. I shall not 
attempt to make anything like an analysis of the sources of 
his power as a speaker. It is easy to enumerate certain 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 91 

prominent elements in Mr. Spurgeon's preaching; but no 
such enumeration would give to us the preacher himself. It is 
one peculiarity about genius that it cannot be explained 
scientifically. Mr. Spurgeon has tiu-ned out some hundreds 
of preachers, but among them all there is no second Spur- 
geon. There are, indeed, only too many Spurgeonettes 
among the young men in his college, but the world is not to 
be taken in by them. Such men as Archibald G. Brown and 
W. Cuff and E. G. Gauge have drawn from him noble and 
life-long impulses, but they have never lost their own indi- 
viduality. You can no more manufacture another Spur- 
geon from among his students than you can manufacture 
another Gladstone from among the members of his cabinet. 

" The preacher is born, not made. This is most emphati- 
cally true of Mr. Spurgeon. He came, indeed, from a race 
of preachers ; but he owed little or nothing to them. He 
was first heard in London as pastor of a church which had 
numbered Gill and Rippon among its ministers. But when 
he came to it, the memory of these great names only mocked 
the empty pews of the deserted chapel. New Park Street 
has, indeed, a pleasant sound ; but the place itself is un- 
savory and inaccessible, surrounded by tanneries, breweries, 
and low slums, and lies in that inferior part of London 
which is popularly known as ' the other side of the water.' 
The neighborhood seemed to be ' a place to bury strangers 
in,' to the stray worshiper who started in quest of the almost 
forgotten chapel. Yet before the boy from Essex had been 
preaching there many months, the street was alive with 
people, and the chapel itself was crammed to suffocation. 

" It was in the spring of 1855 that I first heard him. He 
was preaching in Exeter Hall, and it was his second Sunday 
there. ' Spiritual liberty ' was his theme, and there was, I 



92 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

suspect, a good deal spoken in the sermon whicli does not 
appear in the published report of it. What certainly does 
not appear is the preacher himself. He was then a some- 
what slight and rather active young man. The first words 
which he uttered filled the great hall, and hushed the vast 
audience, with the charm of a voice, clear, sweet, penetrat- 
ing, but above everything, personal. He was speaking to 
me. His manner, to one accustomed to a somcAvhat stately 
ministry, was familiar ; at times it bordered on the irrever- 
ent. His eloquence was more fervid and impetuous than it 
became as years passed on. But it was also more original, 
more imaginative, more inspiring. Much has changed in 
the great preacher since then. He has become, what he was 
not in those days, but what he most undoubtedly is now, a 
great man. But I cannot find that his preaching has 
changed in its staple. The gospel, with which every ser- 
mon is charged to the muzzle, is the same, rich and confi- 
dent, and full in substance and in amount. Then, as now, 
although not to so marked a degree perhaps, criticism 
was suspended. You do not now ask yourself whether you 
are pleased, whether your expectations are met or exceeded. 
The first words of prayer are suflficient to brine: all your 
spiritual nature to the front. ' This man,' you say to your- 
self, as you say also in the case of Mr. Moody, but in the 
case of no third to whom I have ever listened, ' is the great 
poAver of God.' The unanimity of feeling on this point is 
not the least remarkable among the tributes to Mr. Spur- 
geon's powers. Secular journals, inveterate professional 
critics, persons with no pretence even of religiousness, 
are as likely to be subdued and solemnized as the most 
spiritually minded. I have met only one man who was 
thoroughly disappointed in Mr. Spurgeon. He was a sen- 



LIFE OF SPURGEOX. 93 

sationaUst preacher, and his failure to appreciate was, in 
itself, a compliment. A few months ago the ' Temple Bar 
Magazine ' wrote : 

" ' Mr. Spurgeon is among preachers as Mr. Bright among 
parliamentary orators. All desire to criticise vanishes, 
every faculty is subdued into admiration, when he has con- 
cluded a sermon with a burst of his truly inspired eloquence, 
leaving the whole of his congregation amazed, and the vast 
majority of its members anxious or hopeful, but in any 
case roused as if they had seen the heavens open.' 

" ' The Pall Mall Gazette ' is not a journal suspected of re- 
ligious enthusiasm ; but not long since, in describing Mr. 
Spurgeon as the most popular author of the day, it told this 
story with approval : 

" * In many parts of Scotland, in particular, Mr. Spurgeon 
is venerated beyond other men. "We English," said a 
Southron, once, to the old lady who takes visitors round the 
ruins of Meh'ose Abbey, " have had many famous men, but 
we have had no John Knox." " True," said the old dame ; 
"you have had no John Knox, but then you have Mr. 
Spurgeon ! " From a Scotch Presb}'terian, what tribute 
could be more extravagant ? ' 

" Such testimonies are the best evidences that Mr. Spur- 
geon is master of that ' accent of conviction ' which at once 
impresses all who hear it with confidence in the speaker's 
sincerity. He has that rare quality which Clarendon 
ascribes to Sir Thomas Coventry : ' a strange power of mak- 
ing himself believed, the only justifiable design of elo- 
quence.' The absence of many of the lesser graces of the 
orator is soon forgotton. He has not the magnificent pro- 
portions of Phillips Brooks. He has not the impressive 
head of Edward Irving. He is wanting in the exquisite 



94 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

suppleness of George Whitefield. A voice lie has, indeed, 
of whicli, since Whitefield's tones died away, in Newbury- 
poit, Massachusetts, the like has not been heard. He has 
also resources of gesture to which he now very rarely ap- 
peals, but which, twenty-five years ago, won for him the en- 
thusiastic praise of the French critics, with Provost Paradol 
at their head. 

" But no one passing Mr. Suprgeon on the street would 
turn to look twice at him, or single him out at once as the 
most remarkable man of his age. The main characteristic 
of his intellectual nature seems to me to be ability. He is 
very quick and ready-witted. He sees through a subject at 
once or not at all. His sermons, as homiletical compositions, 
are sometimes, but not generally, very happy. The divisions 
and sub-divisions in which he delights would be fatal to any 
save a strong swimmer. He is nowhere so Puritan as here. 
Yet to him, to Dr. Maclaren, to F. W. Robertson, to half a 
dozen others of the foremost preachers of to-day, the old- 
fashioned practice of division of theme is plainly essential. 
Herein lies one chief excellence of their sermons. They can 
be carried away easily by simple-minded hearers. 

" Mr. Spurgeon differs from some of the most admired 
preachers of the present time in that he is not at all ' sug- 
gestive.' He gives the food in well-cut pieces, and leaves 
very little for the imagination. Of course, to a highly poet- 
ical nature, this may be a serious objection ; but, to the vast 
majority, it is a great recommendation. The most sugges- 
tive painter on record was the man who, commissioned by 
his patron to depict the Egyptians drowned in the Red Sea, 
covered his canvas with one huge, unrelieved waste of 
water. He said that the Egyptians were all there, and 
drowned. Most hearers prefer substance to suggestion. The 



LIFE OF SFUMGFON. 95 

exegesis of Mr. Spurgeon's sermons is almost always sound. 
He walks in the old ways, but his mind is hospitable to new 
ideas when they have the recommendation of being also 
true. His exposition of the Psalm is often even superior to 
his sermon. It is pithy, rich, elevated, devout ; hovering in 
the mid-region between prayer and praise. 

"I have spoken of the evident sincerity of Mr. Spur- 
geon's nature. This it is which most quickly endears him 
to his hearer. There is no concealment, no hidden purpose. 
He has no private axe to grind. Strangers who have 
known him only as a preacher, have put large sums of 
money into his hands with the utmost confidence. He is 
the John Bright of the pulpit, in transparent honesty. 

" Other natural characteristics he has which are invaluable 
to a great speaker. He is hopeful and buoyant. I have 
seen him writhing in pain one hour, and preaching enthu- 
siastically the next. He holds, with Whitefield, that a 
good spell of preaching is the best plaister. In common, I 
venture to say, with all the first-class orators of all times 
Mr. Spurgeon is abundant in humor. 

" In his early days he was not wanting in a certain 
charming impudence. Oifensive it never was, but there 
was a great deal of it ; and it served him in good stead at 
the start. ' Mr. Spurgeon, I believe,' an insolent stranger 
said to him, on the street one day, ' the greatest humbug 
in the world.' *I am sorry, sir,' was the retort, 'that I 
cannot call you the greatest anything. Good-morning ! ' 

" His wit is quick as a flash ; and yet it is sheet lightning, 
not forked. It never scathes. Invective he has at his bid- 
ding, but he uses it very sparsely ; and when he does there 
is no jesting. His earnestness is tremendous. But his is 
one of those genuine natures which have no need to aflect 



96 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

passion. Like the Puritans, he has ever at command the 
sister fountains of laughter and of tears; arid rarely uses 
the one when good taste would prefer the other. Of late 
years, his platform speeches have seemed to absorb much 
of the humor which in earlier days was wont to overflow 
in the pulpit. His constant endurance under the shadow 
of sickness, the pathetic conviction that this life may not 
be a long one, the increasing burthen of responsibility, the 
sense that he must work the work of him who has sent him 
while it is day, — all these things have intensified the ear- 
nestness of a nature naturally buoyant, I had almost said 
mercurial. But he has that same rich joyous nature which 
makes the whole world kin with Luther, Latimer, and 
Bunyan. He is perfectly natural and unaffected. Why 
did not his popularity turn his head long ago ? Edward 
Irving had but a tithe of it, and yet he speedily succumbed. 
Mr. Spurgeon is as simple and humble as though he were 
still the poor unknown pastor at Waterbeach ; nay,- 1 be- 
lieve he is far more so. His amazing popularity has only 
driven him nearer to God. He has not felt safe to trust 
himself out of the shadow of the cross. 

" It would be false to fact to deny that his strong doctrinal 
convictions have had much to do with his safety from ship- 
wreck. They have led him to give all the glory to God. 
They have kept him humble in the overwhelming conscious- 
ness of personal nothingness. They have forbidden his 
thinking or speaking lightly of sin. They have fired him 
with an absorbing delight in the divine Sovereignty. They 
have so mastered his whole moral and intellectual nature 
that they betray their presence in his casual conversation 
quite as much as in his pulpit utterances. They give 
unction and fullness to his thoughts, his words, his very 



LIFE OF SFURGEON. 97 

tones. They bare heaven before the fervor of his prayers. 
At the Pastors' College Annual Conference, held a few 
weeks ago, which is mustering time for his students, he put 
forth even more than his wonted vigor, in denouncing the 
strange paths into which some of his brethren are straying, 
and in declaring his unchanged loyalty to the old ways. 

" Many prayers are rising at this hour on his behalf. Per- 
haps most of them will bear as their burthen the plea tliat 
fifty more such years may be granted to the greatest 
preacher of the century. For myself, I would rather pray 
that, be it longer or shorter, that ministry, so dear to mul- 
titudes the whole world over, may not outlive, by one sin- 
gle moment, its loyalty to those doctrines which are in- 
finitely more precious to the preacher's heart than even life 
itself." 



CHAPTER VI. 

THE PREACHER AND THE CONGREGATION. 

E. G. ROBI>SJN, D. D., LL. D,l 

TT7HEN in London during 1867, I was several times a 
» » worshiper at the Tabernacle. I was also present at 
a meeting of the Conference of Baptist ministers, which, if 
I remember rightly, was held in one of the halls on the 
ground floor of the Tabernacle, and there first met Mr. 
Spurgeon. Sitting next him at table, we conversed on a 
variety of topics, and among others about his College for 
the training of ministers ; but in reply to all my inquiries 
about its methods and courses of study, he referred me to 
his brother, who, he said, knew much more about its work 
than he did. His brief and ofi'-hand after-dinner speech 
interested and impressed me more than any sermon that I 
heard from him. In it he alluded to a picture he had a 
short time before seen in the Louvre at Paris, in which a 
saint was represented as absorbed in prayer, and behind a 
screen the angels were engaged in cooking the saint's 
dinner. Spurgeon reminded his brethren that, if devoutly 
faithful to their calling, the angels of God would never fail 
to provide for them. 

The sermons of Mr. Spurgeon, for some reason not 
wholly clear to myself, did not make so profound an 

1 At the request of the author, the veteran theologian and theological instructor, 
who has done so much to raise the charucter of our ministry, has favored the 
readers of this volume with a chapter giving his personal iiiipressions of the 
preacher and the congregation. 

98 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 99 

impression on me as I had expected. In fact, I cannot 
.low recall either the text or the subject of any one of them. 
I was more impressed by the unflagging zeal and fervor, 
the elevation of spirit with which every part of every dis- 
course was delivered, and by his complete control of the 
attention of his audience than by anything he actually said. 
He seemed to me absolutely unconscious of any difference 
between thoughts that were commonplace and thoughts 
tliat were fresh. If new tho'ughts suddenly flashed on him 
as he proceeded with his discourse, no change of tone or of 
emphasis or of facial expression, so far as I could discern, 
betrayed it. He was apparently so intent upon carrying con- 
viction to the minds of his hearers that all consciousness of 
self vanished, and he became totally oblivious of any differ- 
ence in the weight of his thoughts. 

The last sermon that I heard from him, in December, 
1867, Ftruck me as being specially commonplace in thought 
throughout ; but it was delivered with a spiritual earnest- 
ness, not a merely intellectual fervor, that carried all before 
it. Two American ministers, a Lutheran and a Presbyte- 
rian, were on the steamer, who had heard the sermon, one 
of whom had been congratulated by a member of Mr. 
Spurgeon's church on his good fortune in having heard the 
great preacher at his very best. The only thing I remem- 
ber of the discourse was the remark that the preacher and 
his auditors would never be tonrether a^rain. It had been 
ascertained by actual statistics that an average of one died 
from his congregation every week. 

In saying all this, however, nothing is farther from my 
mind than the purpose to disparage Mr. Spurgeon's great- 
ness as a preacher, but directly the contrary. His greatest 
merit was that he could command and hold the attention of 



100 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

every hearer within the sound of his voice — a voice with a 
heart behind it such as only one in ten thousand possesses. 
The illiterate and simple-minded listened to him with 
unending pleasure. He was pre-eminently a preacher for 
the common people, and for that very reason was listened 
to with closest attention by preachers of every grade of 
ability and attainment, and of every denomination, of whom 
there was always a goodly number in attendance. 

When compared or contrasted with other great preachers 
of his time, his distinctive characteristics become most 
apparent. Between him and Canon Liddon, the most dis- 
tinguished preacher of the Anglican Church, there was no 
resemblance, but a complete contrast, alike in substance, in 
form, and in manner. From Maclaren, a brother Baptist, 
he differed widely, having none of Maclaren's power of 
subtle analysis of the thought in a Scripture text, and 
being incapable of his concise and sharply discriminating 
language; but, on the other hand, his was a bolder, and 
more opeii style, and he used more generalized forms of 
statement. As to Henry Ward Beecher, with whom he 
has been frequently compared, the points of dissimilarity 
between them surpass in number the points of resemblance. 
Beecher, even in his moments of highest elevation, never 
lost self-consciousness, and was ever alert to make a good 
point. Spurgeon lost himself in his subject, and what 
points he made seemed absolutely unstudied and spon- 
taneous. Beecher's sermons always smacked of his latest 
reading, scientific, historical, or critical, and were redolent 
of the living spirit of the day. Spurgeon's sermons always 
smacked of the Puritan literature of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, or of Old Testament history, and set up a standard 
of Christian living which at times seemed beyond the pos- 



LIFE OF SPURGEON, 101 

sibility of every-day life. Between Spurgeon and Phillips 
Brooks, with whom comparison is rarely if ever made, there 
seem to me to be more points of resemblance, notwithstand- 
ing great dissimilarity, than between him and any other of 
his celebrated contemporaries. Unlike in personal culture, 
in doctrinal views, in taste and in manner of delivery, they 
are singularly alike in quoting no authorities to give weight 
to their sentiments ; in abstaining from all allusion to their 
reading ; in the evident absence of self-consciousness while 
preaching ; in the possession of power to bring themselves 
into personal relationship with each hearer, as bearing to 
him an individual message, and above all in a sublime, 
unaffected, but unmistakable loyalty to Christ. 

I have alluded to Spiirgeon's well-known popularity Avith 
the common people — his complete mastery over the minds 
and hearts of the unlettered and most illiterate. Nothing 
in the vast assemblage worshiping in the Tabernacle so 
much interested me as the devout and absorbed attention 
of lowly people. I took occasion to observe it carefully 
and under various aspects. 

Happening to be in London on a summer Sunday even- 
ing, I went to the Tabernacle, getting there designedly after 
the services had begun and with the purpose of looking at 
the audience from its rear. I looked in for a moment at the 
main entrance on the first floor, and then at the entrance 
on the second floor, where from the junction of the great 
galleries, there was an imposing view of the vast throng of 
worshipers below ; and then climbing a much narrower 
stairway I went up to see what could be found above. On 
this third landing were two open doors, disclosing two tri- 
angular rooms, the base of the triangle opening wide 
towards the preacher, so that all in the rooms could have 



102 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

fall view of him, and lie a full view of them. Kemotc as 
these rooms were from the preacher (they covered the 
broad halhvays of the first two floors), every word was dis- 
tinctly audible. Every seat also was occupied, and appar- 
ently by young people employed in some kind of humble 
service. In a narrow aisle of one of the rooms stood one 
of the most forlorn and wretched-looking of human beings, 
a man in soiled and tattered clothes, with uncombed and 
matted hair, with a battered hat in his hand, unnoticed and 
unnoticing, but listening as if transfixed and nailed to tht 
floor. It Avas the most touching sight I had ever seen in a 
house of worship. A more emphatic testimony to the 
j^reacher's power could not have been given: 

On another occasion, being at the Tabernacle at an even- 
ing service, one of the members of the church informed me 
that at the close of the services the Lord's Suj)per would 
be administered in one of the rooms on the ground floor, 
and that if I cared to partake of it, he would be happy to 
furnish me a ticket. His oiFer was accepted, but desiring 
not to be seen by Mr. Spurgeon, who I knew^ would recog- 
nize me, and might invito me to sit with him, I contrived 
to enter the room when the stream of ingoing people Avas 
densest, and so escaping notice, dropped upon a bench Avhere 
the people seemed most compactly seated. It was a bench 
without a back, and of course not the most comfortable of 
seats. In spite of the solemnity of the occasion, it was 
impossible for me not to be reminded of a laundry on tl:c 
evening: of washins; day Avhen the clean clothes with the 
strong but not unpleasant scent of soap, have been gathered 
and brought in fresh from the clothes line. The good 
people, humble but cleanly, had all come to church in tlieir 
newly washed summer clothes. That communion service 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 103 

and the upper gallery worshipers had given me a better 
idea of the kind and extent of Spurgeon's great work as a 
preacher of the gospel of Christ than I could have gained 
in a year's experience as a mere hearer of his sermons. 
God raised him up for a great work, and nobly did he 
perform it. 



CHAPTER VII. 

MR. SPURGEON AS A FRIEND. 

BY PROF. T. H. PATTISON, D. D. 1 

UNCONSCIOUSLY Mr. Spurgeon drew his own por- 
trait when he said : "It is not every preacher we 
would care to talk with; but there are some whom one 
would give a fortune to converse with for an hour. I love 
a minister whose face invites me to make him my friend 
— a man upon whose doorstep you read Salve, Welcome ; 
and feel that there is no need of that Pompeian warning, 
Cave Canem, Beware of the dog. Give me the man around 
whom the children come like flies around a honey-pot : they 
are first-class judges of a good man." Certainly if ever the 
man lived whose face invited one to be friendly with him, 
this was he. The eye, its redeeming feature, was full of 
kindliness ; and his voice, which has been criticized for its 
lack of sympathy and pathos in public address, was as 
kindly as his glance. 

Even as a child he must have possessed this happy gift 
of making friends. This first enlisted the interest of the 
Rev. Richard Knill, a man of rare loveliness of character, 
who called him up at six o'clock in the morning that he 
might have a ramble in the old-fashioned garden, and talk 
to the little boy of the love of Jesus. " He knelt down in 
the arbour," says Mr. Spurgeon in his last book, " Mem- 

1 By special request, Prof. T. H. Pattison, D. D., has consented to write on this 
subject, one that he is prepared to treat with tact and judgment. 
104 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 105 

ories of Stambourne," " and prayed for me with his arms 
about my neck. He did not seem content unless I kept 
with him in the interval between the services. He heard 
my childish talk with patient love, and repaid it with gra- 
cious instruction." It was not until he had been with the 
child three days that the minister, who was visiting the 
Stambourne parsonage as a missionary deputation, rose to 
that famous prophetic utterance: "This child will one 
day preach the gospel, and he will preach it to great multi- 
tudes." 

From the beginning of his ministry this friendliness of 
heart impressed every one who had any dealing with Mr. 
Spurgeon. I have heard that a grave delegation from the 
Baptist Missionary Society visited Waterbeach (having an 
evening to spare while in Cambridge) and before the meet- 
ing sent to request the company of the young pastor at the 
village inn. His conversation, fearless and racy and at 
that time not by any means so reverent as it afterward be- 
came, fascinated the deputation, even though it disturbed 
not a little their sense of decorum When the hour for the 
public service came, the two visitore consulted together as to 
what part they could, with any safety, invite young Spur- 
geon to take. To ask him to speak seemed perilous, and 
in the end it was determined that he might be appointed to 
pray without risking the decorum of their service. A very 
short time after this he was in London, and thousands of 
eager hearers were crowding the thoroughfares in which 
New Park Street Chapel had suddenly sprung into fame. 
The friends whom he made during his first visit to the 
London church he retained to the close. Thus was sus- 
picion to be allayed, and thus was stiffness to be broken 
down, but half an hour of his frank and genial company 



106 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

put them all to flight forever. In his happy moments of 
complete relaxation he was irresistible. Fun and pathos, 
and irony and common sense, blended in a flow of conver- 
sation which had in it not one unkind word or uncharitable 
insinuation. His genial, unaffected unselfishness disarmed 
prejudices, and made him friends everywhere. 

He once mentioned to me that a man, then recently 
dead, had bequeathed all his fortune, not a very large sum. 
to him. The money had come to the donor through his 
marriage with a widow who had left two daughters entirely 
dependent on their stepfather's bounty, and now by this 
bequest literally penniless in their advancing years. Mr. 
Spurgeon at once investigated the case, and handed the little 
fortune over to them, rescuing them from the poorhouse 
and filling their hearts with grateful love for him. " The 
scoundrel," he said, with a good deal of righteous indigna- 
tion in his tone, "did he think by an act of injustice like 
that to scramble into heaven upon my shoulders ? No^ in- 
deed ; I wasn't going to help the old rascal to any such place ! " 
Even in this little story there is much of his characteristic 
bonhomie. By means of it he often swept aside objections 
when more serious arguments might have been only so 
much wasted breath, and undoubtedly it was a poAverful 
element in his character. A reporter on the " Pall ^lall 
Gazette " told ofl* many years ago to interview him among 
other " Celebrities at Home," confessed to succumbing be- 
fore the charm of this easy, good humor, and having called 
on him in a purely professional way, as he would have 
called on any other subject for his dissecting knife, he left 
him with the conviction that Mr. Spurgeon was not only a 
great man, but also a thoroughly honest one, and a most 
delightful companion. This frank and often humorous 



LIFE OF SPURGE ON. 107 

disposition needs to be remembered in forming an estimate 
of his character. Sayings of his which seem brusque and 
audacious are wonderfully changed if full justice be done 
to the tone in which they were uttered and the laughing 
eye which gave them so much meaning. In this spirit he 
approached many of the difficulties that threatened him on 
his settlement at New Park Street, and in this spirit also 
he met his deacons and other officials, and the many quer- 
ulous or cranky members of his church, his brethren in the 
ministry wlio " wondered whereunto this thing would grow," 
and a whole host of critics and objectors. One after an- 
other they all surrendered, not so much to anything that 
he said as to what he w^as. No one can estimate the value 
of it to the young untried and inexperienced preacher, 
raised at once from the obscurity of a Cambridgeshire vil- 
lage to the fierce light which beats in London on the lion 
of the hour. 

I remember the Rev. Charles Vince, of Birmingham, 
remarking in my hearing that no man had ever leaped 
into such popularity in London, unless it might be Edward 
Irving, and Irving broke doAvn under it. Mr. Spurgeon, 
however, did not break down. Possibly his first exper- 
iences at New Park Street made him cling to the friends 
that he there made with a peculiar fondness. What is 
certain is that to the last they remained very close to him, 
and especially near to his heart. I wrote to him, on one 
occiision, at the request of the church of which I was then 
the minister, in Newcastle on Tyne, asking him to preach 
for us. It was, I think, my first personal communication 
with him, and it gave me an insight into his nature, the 
impression of which has never been efiaced. In reply he 
explained at some length, in an autograph letter, why he 



108 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

could not come, because one of his most intimate friends 
was at the time the pastor of a sister church. "As you 
know," he wrote, " Mr. Carr is in a very special sense my 
friend, and I have in my heart voted him a monopoly of 
my aid until the interest under his care is consolidated. 
^Not that I love Ccesar less, but that I love Rome more.'' . . . 
I should be grieved if you thought that I felt the remotest 
shade of unfriendliness or want of will to serve you ; and 
I do not fear that you will think the less of me for my 
desire to serve, in the first place, a long known and much 
valued friend, who in years past laid me under obligations 
which I feel all the more because he is scarcely aware of 
them. If Mr. Carr himself gives me over to you — well ; 
but I am in this case not my own." I heard at the 
time that the reference in this letter was to the dreadful 
accident at Surrey Music Hall, on the first Sunday of Mr. 
Spurgeon's preaching there, an accident which shook his 
nerves and shattered his self-confidence so seriously that, for 
some weeks he was incapable of any work, and for many 
years — probably to the very end of his life — was disabled 
by it. Mr. Carr had been with him through this severe 
trial, when slander and abuse were heaped upon a heart 
already wrung by the disaster itself, and he never forgot 
his friend's good offices. On leaving Newcastle, Mr. Carr 
returned to business and to the Tabernacle, and served as 
one of its most valued officers until his death. 

While so loyal to his intimate friends, clinging to them 
with an affection almost womanly, Mr. Spurgeon was not 
less remarkable, I think, for his Christian courtesy to those 
who were comparative strangers. Busy as lie always was, 
living every day as he did by the clock, he yet found time 
to visit those whose circumstances specially called for his 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 109 

sympathy. A Presbyterian minister in this country told me 
sj years ago, that when he was detained in London by the 
illness of his wife — an illness which proved in the end to 
be fatal — ^he presented a letter of introduction to Mr. Spur- 
geon, expecting only a casual word or two in return. In- 
stead of this, on hearing of his burden of solicitude, Mr. 
Spurgeon took him at once into the circle of his personal 
friends, treated him as though he had a claim on his time 
and attention, and visited the dying lady, a stranger in a 
strange land, as though he had been her own pastor. To a 
very rare degree he possessed the enviable art of granting 
a favor as though he were rather himself asking for one. 
"All I feel I can say," he wrote to me once as to preaching in 
Lancashire, " is, that if I am alive, well, in England, and 
otherwise able, I mil do as you wdsh, and thank you for 
the opportunity." 

To many readers of these words they may serve to re- 
call brief interviews Avhich occasional hearers enjoyed with 
Mr. Spurgeon at the close of his services. A few words 
only would be spoken, and yet the impression conveyed was 
that each one of these numerous visitors was far more 
necessary to the great-hearted preacher than he himself 
was to the whole of them. At the close of communion 
service at the Tabernacle, I recall the delight with which, 
after begging me to remain until the throng had passed 
out, he recounted how many States in the Union had been 
represented in his congregation that morning ; and I who 
had been present at the various interviews was amazed at 
the felicity Wth which he greeted each new comer, entering 
at once into their circumstances, and speaking to each one 
as though he was an old friend. A heart of rare tender- 
ness and sweetness, a mind quick to catch and ready to use 



110 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

every fresh situation, a memory more retentive perhaps 
than that of any other prominent man, with the possible 
exception of Mr. Gladstone, and all these bathed in the 
glory of a consecrated nature ; — who wonders that Mr. 
Spiirgeon made such a deep impression on those whom he 
met casually in his busy ministry ? Another rare trait in 
his character was his appreciation, often I fear exaggerated, 
of any favors done to him. More prayers rose in his be- 
half all the year round than for any other man of his 
time, and he seemed eager to add to their number. " Think 
of me," he would plead, " when you have the King's ear." 
I have often been surprised to learn how grateful he was 
for each such remembrance. I suppose the sun never set, 
for the last quarter of a century, on the petitions which 
rose to heaven on his behalf, and he prized each one, and 
often referred to comparatively obscure people who were 
in the habit of praying for him. The nearer he got to the 
Throne of Grace, the more numerous he found his friends 
to be. 

Nor was he less mindful of other assistance that he 
received from his acquaintances. . On almost the first 
occasion of my meeting him, he came up to thank me for 
certain references which I had made to him in the public 
prints, and which I had entirely forgotten. Not so he. It 
was not love of praise, I am sure, or the vanity which 
sometimes blemishes the finest natures, but it was rather 
the longing for friendship and the appreciation of every 
manifestation of it. He could not be happy if even a dog 
or a horse turned from him. He loved the breath of life, 
and, intensely human himself, he deemed nothing that 
related to humanity foreign to his feelings. 

His readiness to oblige others was very marked. Some 



LIFE OF SPUEGEON. \l\ 

time since, in writing to him at the close of the year, I 
requested from him a New Year's text, which might serve 
as a motto for a large class of young men in the twelve 
months to come. He responded at once : 

" Dear Friend : It gives me unfeigned pleasure to 
hear from you in the papers, and far more to have a line 
from your own hand. God bless and prosper you evermore. 

" I have had a long month of great pain, and I fear I 
have not gained so much from its discipline as I ought to 
have done ; still I can set to my seal that God is true. Here 
is a New Year's text — ' They that trust in the Lord shall 
be as Mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but standeth 
forever.' Psalm 125 : 1." 

I am not attempting here any analysis of Mr. Spurgeon's 
friendship. It is enough to call attention to some of its 
leading characteristics, and to illustrate them by these slight 
personal reminiscences which will, I believe, be all the more 
worthy of general note from the fact that such friendly 
acts and ways to one who had no sort of claim upon him, 
must have been samples of innumerable others of the same 
kind. The wonder is that, with the pressure of business 
that had to be attended to, Mr. Spurgeon ever found time 
to endear himself to his friends and acquaintances by these 
purely personal courtesies. 

I heard it said once by a shrewd observer that Mr. 
Spurgeon failed to impress those who met him with his 
greatness, and that in this respect he differed from such a 
man, for example, ,as Robert Hall. In answer it might be 
sufficient to say that the close friends of Robert Hall never 
thought whether he was a great man or not. The humble 
shoemaker whom he chose for his Sunday guest for many 



112 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

years because of his deep piety, did not interest himself 
with the fact that he was at the table of the greatest pulpit 
orator of all the centuries, or that the most brilliant meta- 
physician of his year at college was his host. He loved 
him too much to humble himself with thoughts which 
could only, if cherished, part him from the pastor of his 
choice. And Robert Hall, in common with Charles Spur- 
geon, had a hearty horror of every kind of assumption, 
and particularly of that which some ministers affect. 

" There are some companies," said the lecturer to his 
students at the Pastors' College, " into which you will go, 
especially when you are first settled, where everybody will 
be invited because the new minister is to be there. Such 
a position reminds me of the choicest statuary in the 
Vatican. A little room is screened off, a curtain is drawn, 
and lo ! before you stands the great Apollo ! If it be your 
trying lot to be the Apollo of the little party, put an end 
to this nonsense. If I were the Apollo, I should like to 
step right off the pedestal and shake hands all around, and 
you had better do the same ; for sooner or later the fuss 
they make about you will come to an end, and the wisest 
course is to end it yourself Hero-worship is a kind of 
idolatry and must not be encouraged." 

I have referred to the favorable impression which his 
simple and unaffected goodness, his cheeriness and geniality, 
made upon a London reporter. He had very sincere 
horror of what he called " that dreadful ministerial starch." 
I may be pardoned for quoting what he himself has said 
on this subject, both because he has said it better than any 
one else can, and also because it goes a long way in 
accounting for the almost passionate affection which the 
people at large felt for him : 



LIFE OF SrURGEON. 113 

" I am persuaded that one reason why our working men 
so universally keep clear of ministers is because they abhor 
tlicir artificial and unmanly Avays. If they saw us, in the 
P-ilpit and out of it, acting like real men, and speaking 
naturally, like honest men, they would come around us. 
Baxter's remark still holds good : ' The want of a familiar 
tone and expression is a great fault in most of our deliver- 
ies, and that which we should be very careful to amend.' 
The vice of the ministry is that ministers will parsoiiificate 
the gospel. Everybody can see through affectations, and 
people are not likely to be taken in by them. Fling away 
your stilts, brethren, and walk on your feet ; doff your 
ecclesiasticism, and array yourselves in truth." 

I have alluded to Mr. Spurgeon's memory. He had, to 
a very uncommon extent, that faculty for recollecting 
names and faces which is so much coveted by all public 
men. A former member of his church, who had not been 
in the Tabernacle until then, for some years, told me that 
he had worshiped there the Sunday before. Unwilling to 
disturb Mr. Spurgeon after the morning service, and know- 
ing how many persons were waiting to see him, he left 
the church without speaking to him ; but in the evening 
he remained to shake hands with his old pastor, and was 
met at once by a friendly rebuke : 

" I saw you this morning in the congregation, and waited 
for you to come and see me. Why didn't you come? " 

One familiar face had not escaped him among the five 
thousand present on that day. 

There is a general impression that, especially during his 
later years, Mr. Spurgeon paid no pastoral calls ; and I 
heard him once mourning his inability to be as much as he 
wished with his people. But in the case of the sick and 



114 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

the dying, he felt the necessity for his presence. He 
needed it himself. How much of the tenderness of his 
mellowed maturity he owed to ministrations in the sick 
room of Mrs. Spurgeon w^e need not say; but in their 
measure other visits of a similar character were of immeas- 
urable service to him. A friend who was much in his con- 
fidence says : 

" But the chief secret of Mr. Spurgeon's power was faith 
in the living God, and in the power of his gospel. He 
had as real a belief in the gospel as a merchant has in his 
money. On his last visit to Mr. Duncan in Scotland, I 
accompanied Mr. Spurgeon to London. He was very 
weary, but he roused himself up, and said cheerily, 'After 
my service last night, I went to see two of my people. The 
wife was dying of consumj^tion, the husband after an 
attack of typhoid fever. They had neither doubt nor fear, 
and were awaiting death as happily as if it were their wed- 
ding.' With a tear in his voice, he added, ' It makes me 
preach like a lion when I see my people die like that.' " 

Among the last letters Avhich I received from Mr. 
Spurgeon was a postal card, and I need not hesitate, I 
think, to print it, notwithstanding its personal allusions, 
for better than anything that I could say it illustrates the 
loving nature which made him so many friends ; and, 
besides, it would be hard to find, I believe, in all the liter- 
ature of letter writing, a brief note in which genuine 
kindliness of heart found expression in happier words. 

" Dear Friend : The best of years be unto you. 
Your card was very sweet. I am very ill, weary and low ; 
but yet I am in such tender hands that I am by no means 
unhappy. Let him do as seemeth him good. 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 115 

"I am indeed favored with the kind opinions of my 
brethren. I pray to be more worthy of the honor of their 
love. 

" I am glad of the love of yourself and your father, who 
seems to be growing out on his western side — all good 
things go this way. It will be no ill day for me when I 
go in a fuller sense to the land of the setting sun. 

" Yours ever most heartily, 

"C. H. Spurgeon." 

Those who are tempted to complain that wdth postal 
cards the age and art of letter writing have passed away, 
may find reason to modify their judgment after reading 
this exquisite specimen of compact correspondence. All 
that I have aimed at in this chapter has been to give some 
few illustrations of Mr. Spurgeon's friendship to one who 
had no reason to believe himself more than one of a 
thousand. If each one who received like tokens of his 
courtesy and his consideration, his unselfish attention and 
his bright and winsome goodness should throw his stone, 
after the old Highland fashion, upon his grave, the cairn 
that would rise would speak more eloquently than any 
human language the honors of the rare and beautiful 
spirit that has passed away. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

SPURGEON AS A MAN. 

THOMAS ARM ITAGE, D. D. 1 

WHEN God raises up a servant for a special work, he 
endows him with an original constitution, and gives 
his character a set of elements which are indispensable to 
the right execution of that work. He would not be 
adapted to it if he possessed another set of attributes, or 
if his faculties were modified one to the other on another 
plane. A great writer has expressed the idea when he 
says, that unless a man " Be born a poet, he will never 
attain the genuine spirit of poetry." AVellington could 
not have been a painter nor a sculptor. He had no,t the 
creative ideality, the glowing imagination to handle the 
pencil, or the chisel. Napoleon never could have been a 
philanthropist, a moral reformer, nor a merchant prince. 
On the same grounds, Spurgeon's natural predelictions, 
habits and tastes, exactly fitted him to be the one great 
preacher of London. With his common sense, his methodi- 
cal life, his quick-sightedness, his firmness, endurance, 
courage, activity, and enterprise, he might have made a 
respectable merchant, an able statesman, a forceful lawyer, 
or a good warrior. He possessed much of the material for 
success in these lines, but God cut him out of the solid 
rock to fill another niche among men, and his qualifica- 

1 Dr. Arniitage, as one whose acquaintance with Mr. Spurgeon extended 
through ahnost the whole of the latter's residence in London was requested to 
furnish the interesting chapter which follows. 
116 



LIFE OF SFUEGEON. 117 

tions from God shaped him aloue for his pre-eminence. 
During the Uxst half century, he has shed no light on the 
laws and political government of his native country, as 
have Cavour, Bismark, and Gladstone ; he has given no 
scientific contribution to the structure of his mother tongue, 
as has Max Miiller ; he has given the world no geological 
explorations, as have Livingstone and Stanley. His work 
lay in none of these directions. He was formed for a 
preacher and born a preacher ; he has done a special work 
at a special time, and under a special set of circumstances, 
so that he stands unique in Christian history. London had 
a more perfect pulpit orator in George Whitefield, a more 
finished rhetorician in Henry Melville, a complete exegete in 
Dean Trench, a stronger logician in Thomas Binney, a 
keener metaphysician in Howard Hinton, and a more 
finished thinker in Canon Liddon. But all of them together 
failed to move its millions, as did Spurgeon's message from 
God, in the pulpit. 

These records, therefore, of Mr. Spurgeon's work, w^ill 
be of very slight value to the reader unless he has per- 
ception enough to enter into the heart of his inner life and 
read his vital equipments for his mission. These can be 
seen and felt by a true spirit, but it is hard to put them on 
record. Only as the story throws light upon them, can he 
learn what manner of man Spurgeon was, and Spurgeon 
the preacher can never be understood until a thorough 
study is made of Spurgeon the man. 

Much of his manliness is directly traceable to an ancestry 
marked by humility, earnestness, confidence, and direct- 
ness. Although he was such a robust master of honest 
Saxon speech, he was not of Anglo-Saxon stock, but 
descended from the Dutch refusrees who fled from Holland 



118 LIFE OF SPURGEOJS'. 

when the Duke of Alva was desolating the Netherlands, 
in the sixteenth century. Part of the family settled in 
Norfolk, and the branch from which Charles sprang, in 
Essex. Poor, lowly, and persecuted, they inherited a noble 
pedigree in all the higher qualities. of purity, integrity, and 
fidelity to God. For a number of generations the family 
produced a race of sturdy ministers of the Nonconformist 
faith, who in turn thoroughly instructed their children in 
the stern tenets of the Puritans. They were of the Con- 
gregational order, were stout Calvinists, and were stamped 
with sincerity and truth. Surrounded by these influences, 
almost from infancy, this most notable member of the house 
evinced a remarkable precocity in all that related to the 
religion of Christ. The very atmosphere which he breathed 
was surcharged with the prime elements which marked liis 
entire life. The books which he read in the family were 
Fox's "Book of Martyrs," "Robinson Crusoe," Pilgrim's 
Progress, and the English Bible. Fed on this stalwart 
literature, and listening daily to the most ardent prayers 
of all about him for his personal regeneration under the 
power of the Holy Spirit, the boy took the strongest tyj^e 
of Christian character, and grew in that direction, until 
he found himself an embodied confessor of the sixteenth 
century transplanted into the latter half of the nineteenth. 
He cherished the greatest hatred of all religious persecution 
from his youth up, and detested the memory of Bishop 
Bonner equally with that of Alva, and for the same reason. 
His mother and Aunt Ann were very saints, and when 
they read his determined will, his strong passions, and his 
highly positive disposition, their concern increased for his 
future, and their prayers became the more earnest for his 
early conversion to Christ. 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 119 

In their poverty, his family struggled hard to give him 
as good an education as they could command, and although 
his educational advantages were not large, yet they were 
fair, for people in their circumstances. At Colchester he 
spent four years at the school of Mr. Lewis, and acquired 
the elements of Latin, Greek, and French. Besides this, 
he spent a year in school at Maidstone, and afterward be- 
came an usher in respectable schools at Newmarket and 
Cambridge. When he was between fourteen and sixteen 
years of age, his strong mind was terribly unsettled concern- 
ing the divinity of Christianity. He says on this subject: 
" There was an evil hour in Avhicli I slipped the anchor 
of my faith, I cut the cable of my belief, I no longer 
moored myself hard by the coast of Revelation. I 
allowed my vessel to drift before the wind, and thus started 
on the" voyage of infidelity. I said to Reason, ' Be thou my 
captain,' I said to my own heart, ' Be thou my rudder,' and 
I started on my mad voyage." 

Previous to this, he had a hard struggle with antinomian- 
ism, which was very rife in and around London, and while 
he was contending with unbelief on the one hand and 
hyper-Calvinism on the other, in his fifteenth year he wrote 
to his uncle : 

" You have doubtless heard of me as a top-tree Antino- 
mian. I trust you know enough of me to disbelieve it. 1 1, 
is an object of my life to disprove the slander. I groan 
daily under a body of sin and corruption. Oh, for the time 
when I shall drop this flesh and be free from sin ! I be- 
come more and more convinced that to attempt to be saved 
by a mixed covenant of works and faith is, in the Avords 
of Berridge, ' to yoke a snail with an elephant.' I desire 
to press forward for direction to my Master in all things; 



120 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

but as to trusting in my own obedience and righteousness, 
I should be worse than a fool and ten times worse than a 
madman." 

Having passed through this double battle for the footing 
of his faith, he felt the deepest possible compunction for 
sin, he began a gospel search for God, nor rested till he 
found peace for his soul. The early part of his sixteenth 
year was spent in deep humiliation and repentance for his 
personal sin against God ; he wanted above all things to 
find the way of salvation, and he seemed to seek it in vain. 
AVith him sin was not a weakness to be pitied, an infirmity 
into which he had been betrayed, a mere folly at the most. 
It was an enormity, a blow aimed at the divine bosom, an 
attempt to dethrone God, a vile insult to his nature as well 
as his government, and he felt all its bitterness. When he 
had come nearly to his mt's end, God met him in pardon 
at an unexpected time and in an unlooked-for place. In 
Colchester, where he lived, the Primitive Methodists had a 
small chapel, which served as a mission station in the 
Ipswich circuit. The Rev. Robert Eaglen, one of their 
traveling preachers, whom Spurgeon describes to have 
been " as pale as death and as thin as a skeleton," preached 
in this chapel on Sunday, December 15, 1850. The day 
was bitterly cold and marked by a heavy snow-storm, so 
that young Spurgeon could not go to his own place of 
worship, but turned doAvn a by-street and entered this chapel. 
He says : 

" I was miserable, I could do scarcely an>i:hing. My 
heart was broken to pieces. Six months did I pray, 
prayed agonizingly with all my heart, and never had an 
answer. I resolved that in the town where I lived I would 
visit every place of worship, in order to find the way of 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 121 

salvation. I felt I was willing to do anything if God 
would only forgive me. I set off determined to visit all 
the chapels, and though I deeply venerate the men who 
occupy those pulpits now, and did so then, I am bound to 
say, that I never heard them once fully preach the gospel. 
... At last, one snowy day, I found rather an obscure 
street and turned down a court, and there was a little 
chapel. I wanted to go somewhere, but I did net knov/ 
this street. It was the Primitive Methodists' chapel. I 
had heard of this people from many, and how they sang 
so loudly that they made people's heads ache ; but that did 
not matter. I wanted to know^ how I might be saved, and 
if they made my head ache ever so much, I did not care. 
So sitting do^\Ti, the service went on, but no minister came. 
At last a very thin-looking man came into the pulpit. He 
opened the Bible and read these words : ' Look unto me 
and be ye saved, all ye ends of the earth.' Just setting 
his eyes upon me, as if he knew me all by heart, he said : 
* Young man, you are in trouble ! ' Well, I was, sure 
enough. Says he : ' You mil never get out of it unless you 
look to Christ.' Then, lifting his eyes, he cried, as only a 
Primitive Methodist could do, ' Look, look, look ! ' I saw 
at once the way of salvation. Oh, how I did leap for joy 
at that moment ! I know not what else he said, I w^as so 
possessed with that one thought. ... I looked until I 
could almost have looked my eyes aw'ay, and in heaven I 
will look on still, in my joy unspeakable." 

There is a manly strength in all this, mixed with every- 
thing which is child-like, not childish, but great and grand. 
Eight here, in the same year, we find that firm act of con- 
viction which led him to take the step which severed him 
from the church of his fathers, and associated him with 



122 LIFE OF SPURGEON, 

the Baptists. By investigation of the Scriptures he reached 
the conclusion that he was under obligation to follow the 
Saviour in immersion. The strong probability is, that as 
the son of a Pedobaptist minister of note, he had been 
christened in his infancy, but if so, he repudiated that act 
as defective obedience in the light of the gospel. He saw 
that everything in modern church life is framed on the 
scale of capacity possessed by the adult mind, and addressed 
to the consciences and understanding of believers, and hence, 
he said, " I must follow convictions in baptism. If any 
ask, Why was I thus baptized ? I answer, because I believed 
it to be an ordinance of Christ, very specially joined by 
him with faith in his name.' * He that believeth and is 
baptized shall be saved.' I had no superstitious idea that 
faith would save me, for I was saved. I did not seek to have 
sin washed away by water, for I believed that my sins were for- 
given me, by faith in Christ Jesus. Yet I regarded baptism 
as the token to the believer of cleansing, the emblem of his 
burial with his Lord, and the outward avowal of his new 
birth. I did not trust in it ; but because I trusted in Jesus 
as my Saviour, I felt bound to obey him as my- Lord, and 
follow the example which he set us in his own baptism." 

He was living at Newmarket at this time, and there was 
no Baptist church within seven miles of him. There w^as one 
at Isleham, and he walked to that place, and was publiclv 
immersed in the river Lark, by the Rev. W. W. Cantlow, 
the pastor of Pound Lane Chapel, on May 3, 1851. The 
date of his conversion as here given is taken from Mr. 
Eaglen's diary, which shows that he preached the sermon 
from Isaiah 45 : 22, in the chapel at Colchester, on December 
15, 1850, and the date of Spurgeon's baptism is taken from 
the church record at Isleham. 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 123 

What we denominate true manliness, in its highest order, 
carries with it the fitting, the strong, the courageous, the 
dignified, and the enduring. With all these attributes 
Spurgeon was abundantly invested, and this endowment 
swept away from him unifiDrmly the weak, the craven, the 
pitiful, and the sneaking. Manhood is to character what 
an immense foundation is to a splendid structure. From 
boyhood there fell upon him high and holy trusts, and God 
had given him an enlarged nature to bear them in a befit- 
ting manner, nay, with ease, as became the highest style of 
man. Every step which he took in his conversion, his 
baptism, his induction into the Christian pastorship at 
Waterbeach, and finally, in his settlement over the New 
Park Street Church, London, was free from the small, the 
whining, and the w^himpering — it was worthy of the majestic 
man of Nazareth, whose he was and whom he served. 
Every true preacher of righteousness must possess in him- 
self a personal basis of mental and moral strength that is 
native and original, just as every tree must give its own 
elements to its fruits and each star its o^vn glory to its 
light. Hence, how perfectly childish it is, if not foolish, 
for any man to ask where Spurgcon's power lodged, much 
less to attempt a portrait of its character, location, and 
scope. Spurgeon himself could not have answered that 
absurd question, unless he had borrowed Paul's reply : 
"The power is of God." For all the practical purposes of 
life, it would evince as good common sense to ask in what 
the power of Christ consists, as it is to inquire where the 
power of any of his great servants lies. Few men of any 
century have filled such a sphere of influence as this great 
man, because few have reached such a grade of character. 
Let every wiseacre who speculates on Spurgeon's power. 



124 LIFE OF SFURGEON. 

know this, that when he becomes, what Spurgeon was he will 
do what Spurgeon did. First the man, then his ministry. 

Many vain men who would like to shine in borrowed 
and artificial glory would like to shine in his light, but 
there are few men in the world who would be either able 
or willing to pay the price at which he bought the perfect- 
ing of his manhood. Looking at him only through the 
glamour of his pulpit, they fail to discover the deep waters 
and fiery trials through which he was led, and the almost 
martyr spirit which he had brought down from his illus- 
tritious sacrificial ancestry, without which he must have 
broken and sunk. From the very beginning in his London 
ministry, his life was one continuous fight of afflictions. 
The church of which he took charge had been torn by one 
contention after another until its glory had departed. True, 
it had but nine pastors in two hundred and twenty-five 
years, but in 1853 its future seemed hopeless ; it appeared 
to have reached death's door. After hearing the young 
evangelist from Waterbeach several times, so many looked 
upon his preaching as questionable that the deacons only 
ventured to invite him to preach for the church for six 
months, while some were stoutly opposed to his coming at 
all. He consented to come to them, however, for three 
months, when he was called to the pastorate. When he 
accepted the invitation to serve them for three months, he 
said to them : 

" I respect the honesty and boldness of the small minor- 
ity, and only wonder that the number was not greater. I 
pray God that if he does not see fit that I should remain 
with you, the majority may be quite as much the other way 
at the end of six months, so that I may never divide you 
into parties." 



LIFE OF SPUEGEOX. 125 

When he accepted the call of the church to become its 
pastor, he gratefully acknowledged their " unanimous in- 
vitation," and made this touching appeal in his letter of 
acceptance : 

" I feel it to be a high honor to be the pastor of a people 
who can mention glorious names as my predecessors ; and 
I entreat of you to remember me in prayer, that I may 
realize the solemn responsibility of my trust. Kemember 
my youth and inexperience (he was then under twenty) ; 
pray that these may not hinder my usefulness. I trust, 
also, that the remembrance of these may lead you to for- 
give the mistakes I may make, or ungarded words I may 
utter." 

It is remarkable that when John Gill came to this 
church in 1720, at the age of twenty-three years, there was 
a division in the church about his settlement, yet he re- 
mained its pastor for fifty-one years. Dr. Rippon followed 
Gill, in 1773, at the age of twenty-one years, and, after 
serving the church for a year, on trial, he remained with 
it for sixty-three years. Spurgeon settled as pastor of the 
same body in his twentieth year and filled his office for 
thirty-eight years ; and these three men all sprang from 
obscure villages — Gill from Kettering, Rippon from Tiv- 
erton, and Spurgeon from Kelvedon. 

After Spurgeon's congregations had become so large 
that his meeting house in New Park Street could not con- 
tain them, the year 1856 found them worshiping in the 
Royal Surrey Gardens, Music Hall, which held about seven 
thousand people. The great preacher's first illness sprang 
from a panic which seized the throng while he was preach- 
ing in that hall, October 19, 1856, in which fourteen per- 
sons were trodden to death, and a larger number seriously 



126 J^IFE OF SPUEGEON. 

hurt. This scene, together with the abuse of the London 
press, prostrated him and confined him to his sick room for 
a long time. Then came his great struggle to build the 
new Tabernacle, which was accomplished, not only against 
great difficulties, but against much opposition. When he 
became a pastor in London, there were a few earnest Bap- 
tist churches in and about the city, but a majority of our 
churches there were perfectly hyper-Calvinistic, and Avere 
horrified at what they called " duty faith " — that is, the duty 
of a sinner to believe on Christ. They supported a paper 
called " The Earthen Vessel," and Spurgeon was the constant 
object of its attacks, as a heretic, because he pressed the 
duty of accepting Christ upon all men. Hence, for years 
he was in constant battle with these iron-clad brethren. 
Besides this, the Tractarian Movement was at its height, 
and because he combatted the abominable doctrine of bap- 
tismal regeneration with all his might, he became almost 
the most hated man in his native land. His sermon on 
that subject, published in 1864, commanded a sale of one 
hundred and ninety-eight thousand copies. Two years 
later he entered the lists against Puseyism, when he pub- 
lished his great discourse called " The Ax at the Root : A 
Testimony against Puseyite Idolatry." Its circulation was 
very great, and the stern controversy ensued which led him 
to withdraw from the " Evangelical Alliance." Another 
sermon preached at the Crystal Palace, to twenty thousand 
people, on the " Mutiny in India," stirred the entire Eng- 
lish nation, and still another on " India's Ills and England's 
Sorrows " awakened the wildest indignation, because of its 
rebuke of public wrongs. More than one hundred thou- 
sand copies of each of these was sold. He grappled firmly 
with his times. 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 127 

No matter in what light we view his mental and moral 
character, Mr. Spurgeon always appears as a well-balanced 
and unique whole. In all his habitudes there was a strong 
and uniform individuality of lineaments which made him 
complete, lacking nothing. Armed with a creative power 
nearly approaching genius, his soul never failed in alertness 
and vigor. It was capable of the deepest concentration, and 
his originality flowing like a well within, made all his 
movements versatile. Uniformly, that fine humor without 
which no man is complete diflused its light over all the work- 
ings of his mind. Then, quite as naturally, there floAved 
over his spirit an inborn spring of pensiveness, which at times 
touched him with melancholy. Acute in sensibility and 
strong in passion, he rose above and sank below par alterna- 
tively, while his self-control was seldom undisturbed. He 
was more like Abraham Lincoln, in this respect, than any 
other man the writer has ever met. Spurgeon himself was 
deeply conscious of this peculiarity and turned it to the 
best account. Hence, he said: "Depression comes over me 
whenever the Lord is preparing a larger blessing for my 
ministry. Depression has noAv become to me as a prophet 
in rough clothing — a John the Baptist heralding the nearer 
coming of my Lord's richer blessing." As far back as 
1857, in one of his melancholy moods, he turned to the 
writer, when walking in his garden at Nightingale Lane, 
and with tears streaming down his face asked : " Have I 
gone up like a rocket and shall I come down like a stick ? " 
His very popularity made him afraid. He says on this 
subject: "My success ajopalled me. The thought of the 
career which it seemed to open up, so far from elating me, 
cast me into the lowest depths, out of which I uttered my 
Miserere, and found no room for a Gloria in Excelsis." 



128 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

Spurgeon's purity of motive made him one of the truest 
men in the world, and this was one of his noblest traits. 
Not his seeming but his reality struck his enemies dumb. 
The whole man reflected the lustre of a pure hea«*t. No 
one questioned the noble faith which he reposed in the word 
of God, and so no one found occasion against him, except 
as he found it concerning the law of his God. His doctrine 
of inspiration was not a theory. Such a thought with him 
would have weakened its divine authority. Practically, he 
knew nothing of inspiration as an intellectual amusement 
or a holy speculation. He held the Scriptures to be a mes- 
sage from God demanding obedience under the most awful 
sanctions. Amid all the revilings and contempt of men, 
he held his faith in the verbal inspiration of the autograph 
manuscripts of the Bible, with a steady grasp which noth- 
ing could shake, and never mixed the philosophy of nature 
with evangelical teaching. His theme was the fullness and 
freeness of salvation, and he laid his extensive plans for 
saving men on a divine scale. His illuminated conscience, 
his Christian decision, his pure love of genuine gospel work, 
and his reverence for the Divine Book, led him to trust 
none but Bible methods for doing Bible work. This made 
him a flame of fire, lifted him above all stiffness and for- 
mality in his preaching, because it enlisted all his principles, 
the joys and sorrows of his own heart, and threw every 
power of his being into his every-day work, with the most 
resolute inflexibility. His impetuous spirit could bear no 
control below the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit. 
As the word of God dwelt in his own spirit richly and 
molded his character into holy living, he prescribed noth- 
ing less for the government of other men's souls. Looking 
upon sin, not as a mere foible, but as " exceeding sinful " 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 129 

and offensive to God, he knew only of a divine method for 
its remission. Consequently, Christ was to him a " propi- 
tiation for sin " in the full sense of that word, and the re- 
generation of the soul of man came only as a result of his 
atonement. As a result, the contemptuous rejection of that 
provision left men to perish eternally. Future retribution, 
with him, therefore, was not a speculation, but an eternal 
verity and a fundamental teaching. Like his Master, his 
one aim in life was to seek and save the lost ; hence he 
lifted up his Master's thorny and accursed cross as the only 
way of salvation, and never hung a garland upon its head 
to hide its offense and heighten its glory. 

The ruling passion of his life was his love of truth. Once 
fixed in the thought that God and truth demanded this or 
that at his hand, he knew nothing of vacillation. His 
valor had first decided what was right, and after that his 
decision of purpose stood by his duty, no matter what 
might come. The immutability of Christian principle 
silenced all fickleness. He saw at a glance that no true 
and permanent end could be secured without decision. He 
planned wisely, resolved firmly and executed inflexibly, 
and as a consequence, Alps and Pyrenees became plains 
before him. Some great work for Christ was planned; 
then no allurement could seduce him, no failure could dis- 
hearten him, no obstruction could confound him. If in- 
vectives were fulminated, he felt it painfully, but it simply 
fanned his fire. If storms were launched down upon him, 
they only soothed his misgivings. If his best friends fluc- 
tuated in their purpose, their wavering only confirmed him. 
When his foes would dupe him with the cry that he was 
going too fast and far, he only buckled his girdle the tigliter 
until he made the ground tremble with his advancing step. 



130 LJ^^-E OF SPURGEON. 

Under strain his whole inner nature might quiver, but he 
did not abandon the struggle, for whatever God required 
him to do, there he was a gigantic hero. He never stopped 
to consult public opinion, in high and holy enterprises, but 
he often resisted it when he thought it wrong. In this, he 
followed the noble genius of Christ's example, whether it 
were in response to hosannas and the waving of palms, or 
the mad demand from the same lips, " Crucify him ! " He 
was too modest to plume himself upon the findings of the 
crowd without paying the drudgery of scorn as the price. 
Like the New Testament children, he was ready to serve 
the multitude by spreading his garments for the tender- 
footed throng. Like the Apostles, he could give his body 
as a torch, to light the rabble through dark streets. Like 
Latimer and Ridley, he could spread his ashes over the 
cobble-stones of Oxford, that the swinish mob who dreaded 
a rough road to heaven might find a soft path for their 
hoofs. He dared to resist wrong public opinion, to plant 
himself like a pillar of brass before its fulmination, and 
the light of the Celestial City ever broke upon his face, 
when he was surrounded by the herd of Vanity Fair. 

Much has been said of Mr. Spurgeon's voice and man- 
nerisms, and superficial observers, have attributed much 
of his power to these accessories. Before his body was 
broken by severe affliction, his personal presence was rather 
attractive than otherwise. He was not tall, but stout, and 
his frame well knit, his face round, with small and pene- 
trating eyes, his mouth large, but not that of the first-class 
orator. His upper lip was arched, and both lips were 
thick, but when in repose they did not cover his teeth, so 
that in the pronunciation of certain words, the sharp ear 
could discover a semi-hsp. His hair was black and very 



LIFE OF SPURGE ON. 131 

thick. Early in life lie wore no beard or mustache. The 
whole expression of his face was kindly, quite pale, and 
the most genial smile played on his features. Warmth, 
fearlessness, and genuine conviction spoke in his whole 
countenance. His voice was full, round, and rich, not as 
silvery as Dr. Cone's, not as pathetic as Mr. Beecher's, 
but it was held under perfect control, and had more volume 
than theirs. While it would penetrate any assembly, he 
never shouted, much less screamed, so that every syllable 
was uttered distinctly. On one occasion he preached to a 
vast throng of street peddlers, known in London as " coster- 
mongers," but every one in the throng heard him, and 
thousands were moved to tears ; and when the crowd broke 
up, the general cry amongst them was : " Vot a woice, vot 
a woice ! Ah ! vot a coster he would make ! " Add to 
this his trite and homely English, linked with a quiet man- 
ner and the absence of violent gesture, and we can see how 
his delivery added to the force of his preaching. His 
powers of analysis, his command of imagery, and his ability 
of description, clothed in this sententious style, made him 
one of the most captivating speakers imaginable. Every 
hearer could feel if he could not see, his astonishing apti- 
tude for seizing an idea and his instinctive versatility in 
its use. It is reported that Foote, the actor, said of White- 
field, that he could tell from his sermon what was the last 
book that Whitefield had read. Spurgeon had the same 
impressibility of mind, and one whom he admired he 
absorbed. He venerated the very names of his predeces- 
sors in the pulpit of his church, and unconsciously to him- 
self, he drank in their distinguishing traits as preachers. 
He possessed the proverbial and metaphorical style of Keach, 
the theological sweep of Gill, the poetical and practical 



132 LIFE OF spvbgeon: 

spirit of Rippon, and the pure ring of English which 
characterizes Angus ; so that he embodied in himself the 
whole history of his own pulpit. 

But in a high sense, all this was but the scaffolding of 
his ministry. ' His real power lay in the supernatural, so 
far as the writer can read ; he considered himself simply 
as an ambassador of Jesus Christ, sent to deal directly 
with infinite truth, which he felt bound to proclaim, in the 
absence of his Master " in Christ's stead ; " and because he 
was filHng Christ's place, as a preacher, he must preach as 
Christ Avould have preached had he been speaking in pro- 
per person. Only on the ground of this conception can 
any thoughtful mind account for the boundless expanse 
which opened before him, for the grandeur and vastness of 
his power of expatiation. League after league of truth 
grew upon his sight, which he explored, in the deliberate 
and copious language which expressed the revelations that 
filled his soul, by the most easy and natural succession. 
The most obtuse listener felt, when he became full and 
animated, that he was acting under the power of the super- 
natural. His whole being was pervaded with a fervor, a 
fusion, a quiet impassioned unction from God. Reasoning, 
discovery, and pathos flowed from his heart and intellect, 
which indicated the deepest sense of the divine presence in 
the preacher. Without losing his self-command, or his 
directness, without art, or rhapsody, or confusion, he threw 
himself freely and boldly into a sea of thought and feel- 
ing, but never drifted hither and thither for a moment. 
He appeared to forget voice and manner, time and place, 
and in the fecundity of mind which aimed only at one 
object, drove home the truth from God to man. Now his 
vivacity plied a playful raillery, now a sublimity of 



LIFE OF SPURGEO^. 133 

thought ; then a caressing tenderness ; and then again a 
terrific denunciation, an impassioned appeal, or an ineffa- 
ble joy, which carried his hearer away with him. And at 
the close of every sermon, whatever it possessed or lacked, 
each thoughtful man said: "He was a man sent from 
God ! " 

The humanity and philanthropy of Mr. Spurgeon open 
the thought that his manhood had caught the disembodied 
spirit of John Howard and re-incarnated its life. The 
wretchedness of thousands of homeless children in London 
so weighed on his heart, that he made an appeal for them 
through "The Sword and Trowel," in 1866, when Mrs. 
Hillgard sent him twenty thousand pounds for a beginning. 
His orphan houses have so increased one after the other, 
that they now form the homes of five hundred boys and 
girls who have no other shelter on earth. The manner in 
which this Christ-like work took its rise and has been 
nourished, has been fully presented in this book, and all 
that can be added to profit is to say, that this splendid 
enterprise alone w^as worthy of the entire life of Mr. Spur- 
geon or any other man. 

In estimating the manhood, the power and work of Mr. 
Spurgeon, few persons take into account the molding and 
strengthening forces on him which Mrs. Susanna Spurgeon, 
the "elect lady " whom God gave him for his mfe, in 1856, 
when he was in the twenty-second year of his age. She 
was the daughter of Robert Thompson, of Falcon Square, 
London, and a member of Mr. Fletcher's church, (Congre- 
gational) and she has ever been to him a casket of jewels, 
his minister of grace, his angel of mercy. She has been to 
him, as Bishop Taylor expresses it, " Not a friend, but a 
wife. A good woman is in her soul the same that a man 



134 LIFE OF SPURGE ON. 

is, and she is a woman only in her body." No two souls on 
earth from the first fair dawn Avere more perfectly adapted 
to each other than Mr. and Mrs. Spurgeon. He was daring, 
she was diffident. He was great in action, she in sufifering. 
He was rugged, brusque, and sometimes blufi*. He reached 
all that is honorably defiant in man, she all that is soft and 
tender in woman. He had elevated gifts, she the most 
delicate sensibility. She loved him with all her heart. 
Nearly all their married life she was a sufierer and a 
prisoner in her sick room, unable to throw herself publicly 
into all his great undertakings, but she gave sweetness to 
every pleasure and support in every adversity. Whatever 
storms he breasted outside, he always found sunshine and a 
solace at his own hearth. She had more care to preserve 
his health than to recover her own. An almost silent and 
loving companion, she was the most discreet manager of 
her domestic afifairs. Thoroughly instructed and doubly 
engraced with every noble and beautiful virtue, she threw 
an atmosphere about him in which be breathed another 
atmosphere at home from what he felt anywhere else. He 
understood exactly what Solomon jneant when he said: 
" As the sun when it ariseth in the high heaven, so is the 
beauty of a good wife in the ordering of her house." She 
loved his literary employments and was his skillful assistant 
therein. When he was present with her, she was to him as 
a star in the night, as a dew-drop illuminating a thorn. 
She bent over his couch of sickness with the fondness of 
a lover and the firmness of a friend, displaying her courage 
as a ministering angel, binding up his wounds, and pouring 
the consolation of balm and oil into the soul of the sufferer, 
while she wiped the cold sweat from his broAv. And when 
he was absent from her she was ill at ease, for his removal 



LIFE OF SrURGEOX. 135 

was to her a keen pang and the breaking of a prop. Capa- 
ble of the deepest tenderness, she mourned his loss when 
illness took him from her side, and some of the letters 
which she wrote him at those times are among the most pa- 
thetic productions of the English tongue. At those times 
she was not only tossed with tempest by her own sufferings, 
but she was without comfort, that she could not be at his 
side to alleviate his. One day w4ien she was sorely de- 
pressed, as a dark and gloomy night drew on, she lay in 
her sick chamber asking : 

" Why does my Lord thus deal with his child ? Why 
does he so often send sharp and bitter pain to visit me ? 
Why does he permit lingering weakness to hinder the 
sweet service I long to render to his poor servant ? " 

Suddenly, she heard a soft, sweet sound, like the trill of 
a robin by the window. " Surely," she said, " no bird can 
be singing at the window at this time of the year and 
night." Presently she found the sound came from an oak 
log that was burning on the hearth. Then she said : " The 
fire is bringing out the imprisoned music from the inmost 
heart of the old oak." 

The fact is, that Mrs. Spurgeon's aid and sympathy were 
invaluable in the molding of her husband's character and 
life, so that he never could have been what he was without 
her. His mind was finely balanced, so was hers. His 
common sense was large, hers was equally so. His heart 
throbbed with love to God and mankind, and hers glowed 
in fiilly as warm a flame. He was equal to the perfecting 
and execution of every form of benevolence, and in this 
she was a true yoke-fellow, at every step. While at every 
turn in his public life he was the target for every rude 
attack, she, next to God, was his shield and helper. Not- 



136 7v7i^^ OF SPURGEOX. 

withstanding her feebleness of health, she was the real 
founder of the Woman's Missionary Society in his church, 
and of that Book Fund which has circulated about two 
hundred thousand volumes of valuable books amongst the 
poor ministers of Great Britain of all sects who were 
smitten with poverty and book hunger. Her ripening and 
soothing influences upon his rugged nature were semi- 
angelic. Having known her since the second year after 
her marriage, the writer can say intelligently that she is a 
lady of excellent literary accomplishments, deep piety, 
great energy, and determined purpose. Spurgeon's history 
will now be an open book for all time ; but without a care- 
fully written chapter on her influence upon his life, it will 
at the best be but an imperfectly written portrait of him. 
Let all his friends earnestly pray that a double portion of 
his spirit may rest upon her smitten home in Norwood, and 
upon her two precious sons. 

The great and good man has gone, and we all glorify 
God in him. Unlike Whitefield, his writings will give 
posterity a perpetual standard of juds^ment concerning his 
mental and moral character, better than any biography of 
him that ever can be written. He was a learned man, but 
not in the line of scholarship, and yet his work eclipsed 
that of the best scholars in Israel. A thorough Baptist, 
he was the world's preacher. A radical Calvinist, he was 
brought to Christ under the preaching of as radical an 
Arminian. A sturdy Englishman, he preached in Holland, 
and Switzerland, and Italy, and when his work was done, 
he ascended to his God and our God from French soil. 
" He is not dead, whose glorious mind 

Lifts thine on high : 
To live in hearts we leave behind 

Is not to die.'' 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE pastors' college. 

AMONG those converted in the almost unceasing revival 
which began from his earliest labors in London, were 
several young men who were plainly called of God to the 
work of preaching the gospel. But they were usually quite 
uneducated ; they were also very poor, unable to go 
through any of the existing colleges. Then, too, it seemed 
to Mr. Spurgeon that in the colleges the literary prevailed 
over the spiritual, and that the Calvinism was not pro- 
nounced and unmistakable. He felt that there was a lack. 
Acting on his usual princple of not waiting for great 
things, but rather of taking small things and making them 
great, he determined to open a school for these students. 
As always, he used his OAvn resources before taxing others. 
He began with one student, and one instructor (or tutor, 
to use the term employed in England), Mr. George Rog- 
ers. The student recited in Mr. Rogers' house. Presently, 
as the number grew, it became needful to move into one of 
the basement rooms in the Tabernacle. More teachers 
were employed. All the expenses (including the board and 
lodging of the young men) rested on the pastor. He was 
able from his own income, aided by the wise care of his 
devoted wife, to expend eight hundred pounds or more a 
year. Then came a lessening of his income, the sale of his 
sermons having fallen off in the Southern States of America,. 
OAving to his denunciation of slavery. At this time of ex- 
tremity and prayer and faith, he received notice from a 

137 



138 LIFE OF SFUIIGEOX. 

banKing house that two hundred pounds had been lodged 
with them for him, to be used for the education of young 
men. Soon one hundred pounds more came from the same 
source. Then one of the deacons provided an annual din- 
ner at which large amounts were subscribed. 

Presently there was evident need of a building ; and the 
money came. But first the land must be secured, and it 
was in the hands of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who 
never sell land. To suppose that they would either sell or 
rent land for a Baptist College was as if one had asked 
Pope Pius IX. to contribute to the support of Father Gav- 
azzi. But Mr. Spurgeon lived in. an atmosphere of the un- 
precedented. He wrote to the Commissioners. They at 
once directed their secretary to call on Mr. Spurgeon and 
to say to him : 

" You know that we have never sold any land, but we 
will do for you what we do for no one else ; we mil sell 
you the land." 

In this connection, it may be added, to the honor of the 
Commissioners, that later, w^hen he wanted to buy the 
land lying behind the Tabernacle, to avoid the danger that 
hereafter high buildings would be put up, shutting out the 
light from the Tabernacle, the answer was the same. Truly, 
when a man's ways please the Lord, he maketh even the 
Ecclesiastical Commissioners to be his friends. 

Mr. Spurgeon did not gain this kindness and considera- 
tion by any suppression of his opinions. It was partly the 
recognition which could not be denied to his character, 
and partly due to the fact that he was a power not to be 
ignored. 

Sometimes this consideration was shown in an amusing 
way. One clergyman of the Church of England used 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. ^^^ 

every year to send Mr. Spurgeon a loin of pork, saying : 
" I read one of your sermons every day in the year, and I 
send you my tithe. True, you are not of the Aaronic priest- 
hood, but you belong to the order of Melchizedek, to whom 
Abraham gave a tithe." 

But not everybody took the same view. Mr. Spurgeon 
saw that there was need of a chapel at Beckingham, near 
Croydon. Nearly all the land belonged to a wealthy man, 
a devoted churchman. When Mr. Spurgeon wrote, asking 
him to sell a lot, he replied, in substance : 

" If Mr. Bradlaugh wished to put up a house for preach- 
ing his views, you would not sell to him. Now, I regard the 
Dissenters as heretics and schismatics, and I cannot, in 
conscience, sell you a lot." 

Mr. Spurgeon wrote him, in substance : 

" Dear Sir : — I am glad to hear that you have a con- 
science, but I am sorry it is not a better one." 

The college building was completed, at a cost of fifteen 
thousand pounds, and opened, free of debt, in accordance 
with the sturdy honesty of the founder. The course in- 
cludes the common English branches, and especially the 
Bible. The object is, above all else, to fit the young men 
to preach the gospel, to make them devout preachers, script- 
ural preachers, sound doctrinal preachers, attractive 
preachers, who can gather and hold a congregation. 

While there have been other able teachers, yet the great 
feature in the college has been Mr. Spurgeon, his lectures, 
his expositions, his example, his inspiration, his kindness, 
his encouragement. It was properly named, " The Pastors' 
College." It is not too much to say that he was the college. 
And he loved the college, regarding it as the eldest born 
of his heart and brain. He cherished the students as his 



;L40 life of spurgeox. 

younger brethren, following them after they went to their 
fields, joying in their successes, mourning ovei' their trials, 
grieving over the failures which sometimes came to them. 
One of his most widely known and successful students is 
Rev. Archibald G. Brown, who, as pastor of the East 



The Pastors' College. Page 94. 

London Tabernacle, has done a w^ork second to that of him 
whom he loved to call " Master," but second to hardly any 
other. On the Sunday after the sad January 31, Mr. 
Brown, in his sermon, told, amidst deep emotion, the story 
of his relations with Mr. Spurgeon. He told that, at the 
ao-e of thirteen, he went with his father to hear the young 



LIFE OF SPURGEOX. 14]^ 

preacher at Surrey Music Hall, that he shook hands with 
the great man, that he was converted and baptized, and 
that later, when he went to Mr. Spurgeon's study to talk 
with him about entering the Pastors' College, as he en- 
tered the pastor said : 

" Why, young Brown, I have been looking for you." 
" From that moment, 1 Kings 19 : 21 became my experi- 
ence, for there we read of Elisha that he left all and fol- 
lowed Elijah, and ministered to him." 

Another of his students Avho loved him no less, and who 
has by his labors attested the value of the training re- 
ceived at the College, is Rev. William Cuff, pastor of 
Shoreditch Tabernacle. At the Jubilee of Mr. Spurgeon, 
June 19, 1884, Mr. Cuff wrote : 

As founder and President of the Pastors' College, Mr. 
Spurgeon is unique. His influence over every man who 
enters is past finding out. It is a kind of magic spell that 
wins their life-long love, as well as their unbounded confi- 
dence. It is touching to hear the older men talk of him, 
aftar twenty-five years' intimate knowledge of the man 
himself, and all his ways and Avorks. Love begets love ; 
and it is everywhere and always abundantly manifest that 
Mr. Spurgeon loves the college men. He made the college 
his darling life work ; he pets, and fondles, and feeds it as 
a wise and careful mother does her family. The flame of 
love burns on through all the years, never waning, never 
tired. It is a fine, strong spell, which binds every man of 
us close to him. If all the world should scout him to- 
morrow, the men who have been trained in the college, 
like a strong, compact battalion, would surely stand by 
him, and fight his battle with fiery enthusiasm. 

As the years roll on, our love for the President increases, 
and knmvs no bounds. We are no longer raw students, 
fresh from every imaginable trade and occupation, includ- 
ing handling the plough and the scythe, as well as filling 
every position in big firms in the city or town. AVe are 
now men, well disciplined, and seasoned in all kinds of pas- 



1^2 ^^^^ ^^ SPURGEON. 

toral and public life. But the college is dearer tlian ever, 
and the honored President is our fond ideal of a preacher, 
pastor, and patron saint. I write thus strongly, for I see 
the faces and feel the touch of more than six hundred 
brothers, who would, to a man, subscribe to my utterance 
with a loud Amen ! 

Mr. Spurgeon is now (1884) fifty years old, and, despite 
his often infirmities, is as fresh, young, and humorous as 
ever, when strung to the right key. As I listened to this 
year's annual address to the Conference, I said, "Well, 
notwithstanding the pain, weariness, and work of all these 
years, your brain and tongue are as vigorous as ever." It 
Avas, indeed, a marvelous deliverance. Its effect on the six 
hundred men beggars all description. It was brimful of 
passion and pathos, pleading and reasoning. Love and 
logic were on fire, at the tip of his tongue, which flung it 
out on us in burning words, well chosen, and strung to the 
music of his many-toned and marvelous voice. We wept 
and laughed by turns. For a whole hour and a half did 
he talk ; and for that time we all thrilled, and throbbed, 
and burned with emotion and enthusiasm, till prayer to 
God gave the best expression to our pent-up feelings. 

As creeds are so much decried in our day, a word about 
the docrine taught in the college may not be out of place. 
Everybody knows that Mr. Spurgeon holds the ol^-fash- 
ioned Calvinistic doctrine. We should therefore naturally 
expect this doctrine to be taught to the young men. It is, 
and that most definitely. 

The first men in the College and the last out of it stand 
firmly by the Puritan theology, and not what is called 
" New theology." Of course, there is, here and there, an 
exception, but such are very few, and soon, not being 
with us, they go out from us, and find more congenial 
society for tall talk about "the advance of modern 
thought," and " the decay of dogmatic teaching." 

It is often said, " Spurgeon's men are the most clannish 
lot of fellows in the world. They swear by one another, 
and help each other always and everywhere." Quite true. 
We do. We always have. We still mean to. Our An- 
nual Conference is a great factor of this feeling of clanish- 
ness and brotherhood. The President is brother and friend 
to us all. We catch that spirit and feeling, and are pledged 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 143 

to one another by a thousand strong ties and precious 
memories, which spring from and centre in the President. 
Our Conference was formed mainly to foster and feed this 
feeling of oneness and brotherhood. The first Conference 
of the President, Vice-Presidents, Tutors, and present and 
former students, was held March, 1865. One has been held 
every year since. I am proud to say I have been present 
at them all but one, and I know well their power and bless- 
ing to all the men. They come up to the Conference from 
every nook and corner of the land. Some of them are 
martyrs to their position, serving Christ in poverty and ob- 
scurity and loneliness. They are heroes of the cross, brave 
and loyal unto Christ. They come up to greet their com- 
rades from every part of the well- fought field ; and the 
greetings are wonderful. I have seen tears on many a 
manly face, as hands have gripped once more, and words 
of lovino- cheer have been ao-ain uttered. Our Conference 
is a real, live thing, and goes to keep us all one, wherever 
we may settle. 

The constitution of the Conference is simple. Its main 
features may be summed up into an agreement upon three 
things : First, upon the doctrines of grace ; secondly, upon 
believers' baptism ; thirdly, upon earnest endeavors to win 
souls to Christ. The annual meeting keeps these things 
ever before us. The sitting of the Conference lasts a week, 
so that we have time to consider all subjects touching our 
connections and life work. Every Conference has seemed 
better than the preceding,, till, this year, we all did agree 
to say, " Well, this caps all. It has been the best.'' 

At first, the College was looked down upon by many, who 
knew it would be a failure. As the men settled over the 
churches, they were called "ignorant and rough." Cer- 
tainly, we were not like the old type of white-tie and 
broad-cloth, with cut-and-dried essay in the pulpit. But, 
whether we were "ignorant and rough," or not, we now 
leave our work and positions to say. Our men are now 
pastors over many of our largest and best churches, from 
Rev. E. G. Gauge, of Broadmead, Bristol, downwards. 

When it has been said to me, "Your men copy Mr. 
Spurgeon so," I have always said, and say now, " Find us 
a better model." Undoubtedly, .we have caught his manner 
of doing things as well as his spirit ; I am not ashamed to 



144 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

say that I have most carefully studied him in every thing, 
and I bless the Lord I know him and all his methods so 
well. 

I will close my remarks on a subject I love so well, with 
a few words from Mr. Spurgeon's own pen about the Col- 
lege. They were written vears ago, but are as true now as 
then : 

" As to our object in conducting the College, we rejoice 
that we have been successful, beyond our hopes. Our first 
aim has been to educate men of native talent, with good 
speaking powers, who believed themselves to be called to 
the work of the ministry. We persistently refuse men who 
are recommended to us as persons of character and studious 
habits, who, nevertheless, have not actually tried their 
powers of speech. We must have speakers ; we can give a 
man education, but it would be useless to profess to bestow 
oratorical powers. We expect the men to have had two or 
three years preaching at least, and to have had evidences 
of usefulness following their labors ; then our object is to 
remove the rudeness of ignorance, and supply the knowl- 
edge in which they are deficient. Scholarship we do not 
despise nor neglect, but our main object is to educate the 
practical, rather than the learned man. We want, by 
God's help, in the first place, to send out good preaxjhers, 
good pastors, good evangelists ; and, secondarily, good 
scholars — good scholars, however, only with the view of 
their being efiicient .preachers. We think that God uses 
every variety of talent, but that the shrewd, common-sense, 
rough-and-ready brother, when anointed with holy zeal, 
be he learned or not, is usually a successful man ; such 
men we seek for, and such men seek for us." 

In the last paragraph of last year's report (1884), Mr. 
Spurgeon says : 

" During the twenty-eight years of our existence, six hun- 
dred and seventy-five men, exclusive of those at present 
studying with us, have been received into the College, * of 
whom the greater part remain unto this day ; but some 
(forty-six) have fallen asleep.' Making all deductions, 
there are are now in the work of the Lord, in some depart- 
ment of useful service, about five hundred and sixty breth- 
ren. Of tliese, five hundred and five are in our own 
denomination as pastors, missionaries, and evangelists. 



LIFE OF SPUP.GEON. j^45 

For the following illustration of Mr. Spurgeon's influ- 
ence over young men, we are indebted to Kev. George E. 
Rees, of Philadelphia, formerly a student at Bristol Col- 
lege, England. 

In the year 1868, the Autumnal Meetings of the Baptist 
Union were held at Bristol. It was not customary to send 
the visiting friends to hotels and boarding houses, for every 
Christian home Avas open to receive guests. Hospitality 
was the law of the hour. Every denomination joined in 
entertaining, including high dignitaries of the Church of 
England. The students of the Baptist College, like every 
one else, were animated by a desire to entertain, and it was 
resolved to invite Mr. Spurgeon and two or three other 
prominent men to breakfast in the college building. It 
was a great occasion with the students and the presence of 
the chief guest imparted a hilarious spirit to all. His good 
nature and jollity infected everybody, and broke up the 
reserve and timidity common to most of us when in the 
presence of distinguished persons. There were no long 
pauses of oppressive silence when Mr. Spurgeon sat at the 
table. The house was full of mirth and laughter from the 
hour he entered it. When breakfast was over, we adjourned 
to the lecture room where Dr. F. W. Gotch was accustomed 
to lecture to his students. Many friends of the college had 
gathered to hear Mr. Spurgeon talk to the young men. 
The previous evening he had telegraphed to London for 
some of the lectures he was accustomed to give to the stu- 
dents of his own college. They had not yet arrived and 
his brother James went to the railway office in search of 
them. 

During the time of waiting, Mr. Spurgeon began to talk 
in an informal manner about things in general. One foot 
was on a chair and one hand in his pocket, and his face 
wore that contagious brightness so common to it in his 
earlier years. Very soon the lecture room became a scene 
of convulsive laughter and tears. We forget what he said, 
but the emotions and heart-stirrings w^e can never forget. 
Nothing we had ever heard of Mr. Spurgeon had given us 
a true conception of his electrifying power over young men. 
That brief hour was enough to explain why all the students 



146 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

of his College had caught so much of his spirit, cultivated 
his voice, and adopted his methods of speech and work. 
We had often heard them criticised for the Spurgeonic tones 
and for going up and down the land as imitators of their 
famous preacher. It must be confessed that the men of 
older Baptist colleges were not predisposed to think very 
kindly of Spurgeon's students. They were pushing into 
nearly all the vacant churches, creating a sort of glut in 
the ministerial market, and, as some said, lowering the 
standard of scholarship and culture in the Baptist min- 
istry. We had heard a great deal of this and were more 
or less affected by the prevailing sentiment. But after being 
in Mr. Spurgeon's presence half an hour, every disposition 
to blame his students for following their teacher's methods 
and imitating his voice and style of speech Avas gone. We 
could not see how young men could help it, for he was a 
man of so much distinctive personality and so supremely 
attractive, that every one necessarily and unconsciously 
received upon his mind and character the image of Spur- 
geon himself. From that day to this, Ave have had no dis- 
position to blame any of his students for having his stamp 
upon them. It is a good stamp to have. No voice that 
we have ever heard could be imitated Avith so much advan- 
tage as his. 

After he had talked to us for tAA^enty minutes, his 
brother James returned AA^ith a parcel of his lectures, and, 
haAang looked over them, he placed one on the table from 
Avhich he gave us full extracts. • It was affcerAvard pub- 
lished in his first volume of " Lectures to My Students." 
He did not read, but let his eye fall on the lecture as it lay 
on the table before him. It Avas the "Lecture on the 
Voice," perhaps the brightest and most amazing in the 
series. It Avas exhilarating to the utmost degree. English- 
men, strange as it may seem to us on this side of the At- 
lantic, — Englishmen, phlegmatic and self-satisfied as they 
often are, — are quick to see a point and respond Avith all 
their souls to a bit of humor or a funny story. They in- 
dulge far more freely in laughter and applause than Ave do. 
It may readily be imagined then hoAV the students and 
young ministers (the best laughers and applauders in the 
Avorld) greeted almost every sentence AAdth boisterous cheers, 
as the speaker described the various kinds of voices heard 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 147 

in our pulpits. He described the dignified, doctorial, in- 
flated, and bombastic style of pulpit speech, with rolling 
and swelling voice, then the wincing, lady-like, and dawd- 
ling style, mth inimitable humor. Perhaps he excelled in 
his caricatures of the ore rotundo school of oratory. No 
one ever hated unnaturalness in manner of speech with a 
more perfect hatred than he. Very few things which Mr. 
Spurgeon Ayrote are more fresh and entertaining, or more 
religiously helpful than those lectures to his students. Of 
course, they have not literary finish, nor do they measure 
up to the standard of Brooks' and Dale's lectures at Yale ; 
but in some respects they are the best, most practical and 
soul-moving of any lectures delivered to theological stud- 
ents. Then next to these come the addresses given to his 
students at the Annual Conferences of the Pastors' College. 
One of the latest of them was that vigorous plea for the old 
theology called " The Greatest Fight in the World," the title 
being evidently suggested by Drummond's " The Greatest 
Thing in the World." He himself said, in speaking of his 
lectures to his students : " I do not oflfer that which cost me 
nothing, for I have done my best and taken abundant 
pains." 

During the week beginning Sunday, May 1, 1881, was 
the Annual Conference of the Students and Graduates of 
the Pastors' College. The former students came from all 
over England, drawn by the loving desire to sit once more 
at the feet of their President, Pastor, and Friend. Monday 
was occupied largely vai\\ a prayer meeting. On Tuesday, 
Mr. Spurgeon gave his Annual Address. In this address, 
he pours out the richness of his affection and his experience. 
I doubt if anywhere his highest .qualities come out more 
strongly than on these occasions and in his lectures to the 
students. Sometimes the hearers are aroused to an almost 
overpowering degree of enthusiasm. 

On Wednesday there was a Conference on the topic, 
" How to win souls and to evangelize England." Six or 
eight former students, now pastors, spoke. From time to 



148 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

time, Mr. Spurgeon would put in a word of caution, of 
encouragement, of instruction, of experience. At one 
time, lie said : 

We must be careful not to despise small opportunities. 
Some time ago, I had been very ill. On Sunday morning, 
feeling a little better, though weak, I managed to get down 
stairs. My wife said to me : 

" Do you think you could read a chapter in the Bible to 
the servants and any who might come in ? " 

I told her I would try. About twenty came in, and I 
read a chapter, and explained it, though in great weakness. 
My second gardener went home and said to his wife : 

" Why, I understand the Bible when Master reads it." 
His wife said : 

"Do you think he will do the same thing next Sunday?" 
"Perhaps, if he doesn't get well." In the course of the 
week, he was converted. Next Sunday his wife came, and 
she and one of her friends were converted. 

In the evening was the annual meeting and supper, the 
Lord Mayor, Sir William Mac Arthur, presiding. In ex- 
pressing his thankfulness for what had been done by the 
College and the students, Mr. Spurgeon said, " It appears 
to me that nobody ever had such friends as I. I have 
friends who write to me, saying, ' Tell me whenever you are 
in want of money.' " 

One of the young men read a paper on " Temperance in 
its Relation to Religion." After the paper, Mr. Spurgeon 
said, " I have been an abstainer for several years." 

It may be added in this connection that Rev. W. J. 
Mayers, of Bristol, a former student of the Pastors' College, 
told the Avriter, that in 1884 he put the blue ribbon upon Mr. 
and Mrs. Spurgeon. There is no subject, (after salvation 
by Christ) upon which Mr. Spurgeon has spoken more 
often and more earnestly than upon the evil of drink. In 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 149 

the most widely and circulated of his books, "John Plough- 
man's Talk " and "John Ploughman's Pictures," he has, in 
the homely and forcible and direct speech of John Plough- 
man, warned and pleaded against the ale house, and has 
shown the folly of the man who " has a hole under his nose, 
and pours down all his Avages." 

A colporteur of the Colporteurs' Association reports : 
" The book, 'John Ploughman's Pictures,' has been the means 
of leading one man to give up drink. He has joined the 
Congregationalists, and he wishes me to tell Mr. Spurgeon 
that he owes his conversion to that book." 

In his Annual Report as President (1881), Mr. Spurgeon, 
in speaking of the societies among the students, said : 

" The Temperance Society also does a good work and 
tends to keep alive among the men a burning hatred of 
England's direst curse." A lady highly respected in 
Philadelphia, Mrs. C. E. Moorhead, said to the writer : 

" Twenty years ago I was at the same hotel with Mr. 
Spurgeon in Paris ; and at the long dining table, he was 
the only gentleman who did not touch wine." 

And we must bear in mind the almost universal use of 
wine and beer among all classes in England, ministers not 
excepted. The writer heard Mr. Gladstone, in his speech 
on the Budget, (1881) say : 

"Mr. Bass (now Lord Burton) has given us the most 
delightful beverage ever known since nectar went out of 
fashion." 

The founding of the Pastors' College by a young man of 
twenty-six was a wonderful instance of that bravery and 
faith in God which would have been condemned as fool- 
hardiness if it had not been justified by results. But Mr. 
Spurgeon felt himself led, and almost forced into it by the 



150 LIFE OF SPUBGEON. 

plain providence olF God. The issue passed his brightest 
hopes ; ninety thousand have been baptized by pastors who 
studied at the College. Mr. Spurgeon, in vindicating 
the existence of the College, once showed that but for 
the baptisms by the students, there would have been an 
actual diminution of the denomination in the preceding 
year. 

The College enabled him to do what is one of the greatest 
means of usefulness : he multiplied himself (we say it mth 
profound reverence) as the Master repeated himself in his 
apostles and disciples. Wherever there was a loving, 
devout, earnest student, there was a smaller Spurgeon. 
They are not editors ; they are not literateurs ; they are 
not professors : they are preachers. And if, now and then, 
they show by their tones or manner the traces of the mas- 
ter whom in common with all the world they admired, is 
it strange? Is it uncommon in America to recognize in 
the pupils something of the teacher ? There is only one 
way to avoid all liability of being imitated ; it is by being 
destitute of all that can tempt to imitation. 

Not that Mr. Spurgeon made Spurgeonites or that he 
founded a New School, the School of Spurgeonism. It is 
to his honor that he introduced no new doctrines. He ex- 
pressly abjured the thought of such a scheme. If men 
might but have more of the doctrine of Jesus and Paul, he 
was satisfied. As always, the penalty of success was greater 
burdens. When the students went out and preached in 
destitute places, a blessing so rested on their labors that 
congregations were gathered, and chapels were needed. 
To whom should the young men look but to the loving 
friend, and the strong helper? And he responded first 
from his own means. His last letter to his pupil, Mr. Cuff, 



LIFE OF SFURGEON. 151 

carried fifty pounds for a church enterprise. And then 
the church was enlisted. 

Some of the students went as missionaries to the lands of 
heathenism or of baptized superstition. These too called 
for help. But as the calls grew, the faith of the Lord's 
servant grew, and the Lord's faithfulness became more 
manifest. From unexpected quarters help came. Persons 
whom he had never known, yet who knew his wisdom and 
goodness, placed large sums in his hands. And in a multi- 
tude of cases these gifts just met some pressing need. The 
old miracles seemed renewed. 

Such cases as these would happen all the time. Mr. 
Spurgeon, driving not far from his home on Tuesday, saw 
a spot where there was need of a chapel. He asked the 
Lord for help. On Thursday, when he came home, his 
wife said : 

"There was a gentleman here to see you, and he left 
some money for you to use just as you choose ; and how 
much do you think it was ? " 

" Five hundred pounds ? " 

" No ; it was one thousand pounds." 

So Mr. Spurgeon bought a lot for the chapel for five 
hundred pounds, selling off enough to make it cost but two 
hundred and fifty pounds ; and the chapel was built. 

They begged him to come to a village where a poor 
brother wanted to build a house. He w^ent and preached 
to them. Then he said : 

" It will cost six hundred pounds to put up a little chapel. 
How much can you raise among yourselves ? " 

They reckoned up and thought by hard lifting and great 
sacrifice, they could raise twenty pounds. He said to 
them : 



152 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

" Now I want you to promise me that you will all pray 
about this." 

A little while after, a gentleman called to see Mr. 
Spurgeon, and said : 

"I owe you a great deal. I once had a handsome 
property, but I lost it by endorsing. I was much dis- 
couraged, but just then I heard you preach, and you gave 
me such faith and courage, that I began again, and God 
has blessed me. I want to give you one hundred pounds 
to use as you please." 

" That will be a good start for the little church," said 
Mi*. Spurgeon, and he told the gentleman about it. 

" Please tell the people," the latter said, "that I will not 
only give this one hundred pounds, but I will give the last 
hundred of the six hundred." 

" And now," added Mr. Spurgeon, " I am looking out for 
the other four hundred pounds." 

Once, when the Trustees of the Orphanage met, there 
were three hundred and sixty pounds on hand, and bills to 
be paid amounting to three hundred and sixty pounds. 
As this left the treasury empty, he said : 

"We must look to God; but first, how much are we 
ourselves willing to do? I have twenty-five pounds for 
the orphans. Here are six of us ; I suppose each mil do as 
much." 

And at once, one hundred and fifty pounds was made up. 
Then, without leaving his seat, Mr. Spurgeon asked God 
for help. Within a very short time, he received eight 
hundred pounds for the Orphanage and one thousand six 
hundred pounds for other objects. Very soon, a gentleman 
called and said : 

" Mr Spurgeon, you do not know me ? " 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 153 

" No, sir." 

" Will you promise not to make any eftbrt to know my 
name?" 

"Certainly." 

" Well, here is one hundred pounds for the College, one 
hundred pounds for your colporteurs, and five hundred 
pounds for the Orphanage." 

We are indebted to the kindness of Churchill H. Cutting, 
Esq., for the following, addressed to his father, the late 
honored S. S. Cutting, D. D., Secretary of the American 
Baptist Education Commission, which gives Mr. Spurgeon's 
idea of a theological school for plain ministers. It embodies 
the gigantic common sense characteristic of its author. 

1. Found a College into which men with an ordinary 
English education can be admitted without being degraded 
by comparison mth graduates of secular universities. 

2 Set before the men no ambition after scholarship for 
its own sake, but keep them to the one aim of being soul- 
winners and edifiers of the saints — ^therefore do not aim at 
degrees, etc. 

3. Provide for poor men all necessaries — board, lodging, 
clothes, books, in fact, all they want. 

4. Keep all this at the cheapest rate, that men may not 
form habits they cannot afterward live up to. 

5. Affiliate the College to a large working church. 
Expect the men to be members, and during the first six 
months workers in the schools, etc. 

6. Keep the period of study short, say two to three years. 
Never exceed this. Men who cannot do in that time, are 
no great good for rough work. 

7. Give every man the first three or six months as pro- 
bation, and constantly weed out the idle, vain, inefficient, 
or devoid of zeal. 

8. Keep up the devotional spirit by giving half a day in 
the week for nothing but prayer. Begin each class with 
prayer. 

9. Make them live in Christian families, and send round 



154 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

a Christian man constantly to inquire as to habits, domes- 
tic, moral, etc. 

10. Make it known by your magazines and papers that 
men can be received and are wanted. See my yearly 
Almanac. 

11. Do not embarrass the President with committees, etc. 

12. Sort the men and do not make the studies in each 
case the same. Some never will learn classics ; some will 
readily. 

13. Have frequent sermonizings, discussions, etc., and 
encourage extempore speech. 

14. Let a man who is really a good fellow stay till a 
place is ready for him ; and let him come back, if, in his 
first church, he does not succeed. Keep him with you 
another term and let him try again. 

15. With poor men keep up a system of traveling libra- 
ries to keep them in books and help them to go on edu- 
cating themselves. 

16. Let tutors be brethren to the men, not lords. The 
more familiar the intercourse the deeper the love and the 
truer the respect. 

17. Call in pastors, missionaries, and successful workers 
to talk to the men and tell them their experiences. 

18. Keep the men to outdoor preaching and encourage 
them to be winning souls while students. 

19. Make the physical sciences a great point; they 
furnish illustrations, relieve the severity of study, and 
enlarge the mind. Change of work is recreation. 

20. Keep the church praying for them. Interest the 
church by meetings in which the men speak. Let begin- 
ners speak, and then in after months the people will remark 
their progress, and see the reality of their preparation. 

21. Believe in Dr. Francis Wayland's " Principles of the 
Baptists," and practically carry them out. 

22. The Lord, the Holy Spirit direct you, and bless you 
with his guidance ; follow that guidance, and not my 
recommendations wherein they fail. 

C. H. Spurgeon. 



Mr. Spurgeon's well-known estimate of committees comes 
out in the above, as in his well-known mot, " The best com- 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 



155 



mittee is a committee of three, of whom one is away and 
another is at home sick." 

Akin to the College in spirit is the Colporteurs' Associa- 
tion, which has its headquarters at the College, and is sus- 
tained by the church. It has about ninety colporteurs in 




CCUPORTBUR AND BlBI.»? CARRIAGE 



the field, who sell each year toward two hundred thousand 
books and twice that number of magazines, besides giving 
away tracts and sermons by the million. 

Rev. R. Shindler, in his most interesting " C. W. Spurgeon's 
Life and Work," gives a list of various missions and schools 



156 LIFE OF 8PURGE0N. 

connected with the Tabernacle, beside city missionaries, 
Bible women, mothers' meetings, orphanage, and colporteur 
working societies, etc. In Mr. Spurgeon's mind, salvation 
and service were inseparable ; he knew no salvation that 
did not also mean service. 

The following list will give some idea of the missionary 
work carried on by the Metropohtan Church : 

Almshouses' Sunday-school. 

Dunn's Institute. 

Boddy's Bridge. 

Portobello Koad, Notting Hill. 

Battersea Park Road. 

Lavinia Road, King's Cross. 

Little George Street, Bermondsey. 

Bedfont, near Hounslow. 

North Che am. 

Waltham Abbey. 

Townsend Street, Old Kent Road. 

Centenary Memorial. 

Richmond Street, Walworth, Sunday and Ragged schools. 

Haddon Hall, Bermondsey. 

Surrey Gardens, Memorial Hall. 

Stockwell Orphanage. 

Lansdowne Place. 

Rock Mission, Camberwell. 

Jireh Mission, Garden Row, S. E. 

Bermondsey Ragged School. 

Boundary Lane, Camberwell. 

Ebury Street, S. W. 

Great Hunter Street. 

North Street, Kensington. 



LIFE OF SFURGEON. I57 

Snow's Field, Bermondsey. 

Palmer's Green. 

Wansted. 

Surrey Square, Old Kent Koad. 

Townley Street, AVal worth. 

Vinegar Ground, Old Street. 

Ormside Street, Old Kent Koad. 

Scovill Road, Borough. 

Metropolitan Tabernacle Sunday-school. 

Ten Bible Classes : One for men only, one for women only 
one for men and women, the remainder for young men 
and young women. 

Metropolitan Tabernacle Christian Brothers' Benefit So- 
ciety. 

Metropolitan Tabernacle Evangelists' Association and 
Country Mission (with training class for the workers). 

Metropolitan Tabernacle Flower Mission. 

Metropolitan Tabernacle Gospel Temperance Society. 

Metropolitan Tabernacle Ladies' Benevolent Society. 

Metropolitan Tabernacle Ladies' Maternal Society. 

Metropolitan Tabernacle Loan Tract Society (for the house- 
to-house distribution of Mr. Spurgeon's Sermons in the 
neighborhood of the Tabernacle). 

Spurgeon's Sermons' Tract Society (for the circulation of 
Mr. Spurgeon's Sermons in Country districts). 

Metropolitan Tabernacle Poor Ministers' Clothing Society. 

City Missionaries, BibleAYomen, Mothers' Meetings, Orphan- 
age and Colportage Working Societies, and numerous 
other agencies. 

At the Memorial Services at the Tabernacle, on Wednes- 
day, February 10th, there was a meeting for members and 



158 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

workers at which there were fervent and manly pleadings 
for the Home Mission Work of the church, and Mr. Wil- 
liam Olney stated that, "On Sunday evenings fully one 
thousand members of the Tabernacle were absent, engaged 
in this mission work." 



CHAPTER X. 

THE ORPHANAGE. 

TRULY God leads his servants by ways that they know 
not. Mr. Spurgeon founded the Pastors' College 
because he saw an urgent need, though he knew not whence 
the means would come. The Orphanage exists largely be- 
cause the means were pressed on him. He had mentioned 
in the " Sword and Trowel " several lines of Christian benev- 
olence, and among them an Orphanage. Not long after- 
wards, in September, 1866, Mrs. Hillyard, a Baptist lady, 
the widow of a Church of England clergyman, wrote, pro- 
posing to give him twenty thousand pounds for the founda- 
tion of an orphanage for boys. Mr. Spurgeon, already 
over-burdened, was reluctant to undertake this new labor, 
and he urged Mrs. Hillyard to give the money for Mr. 
Miiller's orphan houses on Ashley Downs, Bristol. But 
she had made up her mind, and Mr. Spurgeon after some 
discussion consented to carry out her plan. A Board of 
Trustees was formed, with Mr. Spurgeon as President. A 
location was selected at Stockwell, and negotiations begun 
for the purchase. The lodge of the Orphanage is on leased 
land ; the lease contains a condition that, if the premises 
are ever used for " a tavern, or a tripe shop, or a conventicle, 
or any other nuisance," the lease becomes void. A prayer- 
meeting at the lodge would vitiate the lease. 

Unfortunately, as it seemed, very providentially, as it 
turned out, when they were ready to push on the work the 
railroad bonds which constituted the gift of Mrs. Hillyard, 

159 



160. LIl^E OF SPURGEON. 

were below par, and could only be sold at a great loss. It 
was decided to reserve them as an endowment, and to 
gather means for purchasing the grounds and building the 
cottages from other sources. The Tabernacle was enfisted 
in prayer and in sacrifice ; the answers were wonderful. A 
gentleman of wealth, on his silver wedding, made his wife 
a gift of five hundred pounds. The lady, who had often 
been a helper of Mr. Spurgeon, gave the money toward one 
of the cottages. A gentleman handed Mr. Spurgeon's 
secretary an envelope containing six hundred pounds, re- 
fusing to have his name mentioned. The money was 
devoted to a second cottage. The story of the third cot- 
tage was most touching. The workmen who had been 
employed on the first two ofiered to give their work toward 
a third ; and the employers promised the material. And so 
the Silver Wedding House, the Merchant's House and the 
Workmen's House were built, and, less than a year from 
the time of the first gift, the corner stones were laid, one 
by Mrs. Hillyard, one by Mr. Spurgeon, and one by 'Mr. 
Higgs, in behalf of the workmen. On that day, two thou- 
sand four hundred pounds was collected. 

Seeing how wonderfully faithful Grod was to his prom- 
ises, the trustees determined to put up eight cottages. 
Deacoi} Olney, one of the pillars of the Tabernacle, with 
his sons, gave a fourth, in memory of Mrs. Olney. The 
Baptist Union of Great Britain and Ireland voted to give 
two ; the Sunday School of the Tabernacle gave another ; 
the students at the Pastors' College gave an eighth, the 
corner stone of which was laid by Mrs. Spurgeon, who, 
though a constant invalid and sufferer, was wonderfully 
strengthened for that day. 

The work continued with almost daily marks of God's 




Boys' Home-Stock%vell Ohphanagf 



P<.ge. 160. 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 161 

favor. The gift of money made to Mr. Spiirgeon on his 
thirty-fourth birthday, he, with his habitual generosity, 
devoted to the Orphanage. Within two years from the 
time when the project was first entertained, the entire sum 
for building and furnishing the eight houses, ten thousand 
two hundred pounds, was pledged. 

The same divine guidance and blessing which had been 
so plain in the original purpose and in the creation of 
means no less presided over the choice of a head master. 
Mr. Vernon J. Charlesworth, a member of the Tabernacle 
Church since 1874, has shown all the varied qualities which 
make him the kind, wise father of this large family. No 
doubt it was owing to his administrative ability, seconding 
the wise judgment of the founder, that the annual cost of 
the maintenance of each orphan is fourteen pounds ten 
shillings, while in several similar institutions it is twenty- 
nine pounds. But economy is not effected by any sacrifice 
of comfort, happiness, or health. Sometimes there has 
been need of close frugality ; but there has never been 
want. The Orphanage is a home ; the children are not 
institutionalized. They do not wear an antique outlandish 
garb, like the boys whose blue coats, set off* with yellow 
leather belts, and always bare heads, mark them out in 
the streets of London as " Blue Coat Boys." They are 
dressed like other lads of their age. Mr. Charlesworth 
said : 

"At a certain season of the year, the dealers all have rem- 
nants of excellent material which they are glad to sell at half 
price. In the winter, there are many tailors who are out 
of work, and who are glad to be employed at very low 
wages. So we get the clothes made of the best material 
and in the best manner, at the lowest rate, and with benefit 



162 LIFE OF SPUBGEON. 

to all concerned. We find that the best is the cheapest in 
the end." 

The boys attend school daily, and have a good English 
education. They are not taught any particular trade, but 
are trained to do just as they are bid ; they are always in 



ONE OF THE SCHOOL-ROOMS, 



demand in shops and work shops, and are often promoted 
by their employers. They are strongly attached to the 
Orphanage and very often give to it their first earnings. 

Usually in England, interest is regarded in the admission 
of persons to charitable institutions. A person has a vote 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 165 

ill the admission of candidates for each guinea of his 
annual subscription. A person wishing admission for her- 
self or her child, goes from one patron or subscriber to 
another soliciting votes, and may thus spend money abso- 
lutely needed at home, and all in vain, if some one else can 
get more votes and interest. Thus, the more friends one 
has — that is, the less needy and destitute he is — the better 
his chance of being relieved. All is otherwise at Stock- 
well ; no claim is considered but need. It is pitiable indeed 
to see a widow mth three children go away unsuccessful in 
her application, because another mth six children was more 
necessitous; but at least she has not spent her scanty 
means in canvassing for votes. 

The Orphanage is strictly unsectarian in conferring its 
blessings. During its first twelve years, of five hundred 
and eighty-eight admitted, two hundred and four were of 
Church of England parentage, and one hundred and thirty- 
four of Baptist parentage. 

Many of the boys have become Christians, and have been 
baptized. Some of them have entered the Pastors' College. 

The judgment of every candid and intelligent observer is 
expressed in the words of two of the inspectors sent by the 
Local Government Board to visit the Orphanage : "An ad- 
mirable institution, good in design, and, if possible, better 
in execution." 

Success begets success. The logical conclusion from the 
" Boys' Orphanage " was the Girls' Orphanage. Every ar- 
gument for the one was, at least, as urgent for the other. In 
1879 gifts began to come in for a series of buildings for 
girls, Mr. Spurgeon, as usual, leading the way. A fine 
piece of land, lying adjacent, was purchased for four thou- 
sand pounds, and paid for. Then came gifts for " The 



166 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 



Reading House," "The Liverpool House," and others. 
Eight houses were erected on the opposite side of the quad- 
rangle from the boy's row. 

We quote from the letter of a visitor written in Octo- 
ber, 1886; 




Boys' Playground— Stockwell Orphanage. Page 167. 

" On Monday Mr. Spurgeon wrote me : 

" ' Friday is my rest day ; will you make it a Spurgeon 
day?' 

" Of course, I was only too glad ; so I agreed to meet him 
at the Orphanage at eleven o'clock. He added ; 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 167 

"'Make au engagement and then be sure and keep 
it, like an editor ; for I am a horribly punctual person 
myself.' 

" He has suffered much from a want of consideration in 
visitors with whom he had made appointments. So we were 
a few minutes early. We found at the Orphanage, Rev. 
Charles Spurgeon, his son, pastor at Green-\nch, and Mr. 
Charlesworth, the head master. ]Mr. Spurgeon soon greeted 
us most heartily. As there was much to see, he did not let the 
grass grow under our feet. As he went from the office into 
the playground, cheer on cheer rose from the boys, as the 
burly frame of their friend, the father of the Orphanage, 
was recognized. 

" We went first to the laundry ; the machinery is all of the 
best. Mr. Spurgeon believes that whatever is done for God 
should be done perfectly. The girls were doing the iron- 
ing. Mr. Spurgeon had a pleasant word for each. 

" The next cottage is the head master's house ; the next is 
the staff building for the various officers. I need not re- 
mind you that there is not one vast building, but a series 
of cottages. It cost rather more at the start, but there is 
more family life ; the children are more easily managed ; 
a fire or a contagion could be kept within bounds, and then 
each cottage has its history ; one is built by contributions of 
friends from Liverpool, and an inscription records the fact, 
and also the fact that the corner-stone was laid by Rev. Hugh 
Stowell Bro^^^l, of Liverpool ; another was erected to cele- 
brate the silver wedding (though it has been a golden wed- 
ding from the start) of Mr. Spurgeon, and it has an in- 
scription accordingly. The corner-stone of another was 
laid on his fifty-first birthday. 

" We next went into one of the girls' cottages, holding 



168 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 



forty or fifty. Everything was neat and homelike. Then 
to the girls' schoolrooms, which occupied the upper story 
of two or three adjoining cottages. As we entered each 
room the girls welcomed Mr. Spurgeon with smiles and by 
clapping their hands. It made the tears come to my eyes 
again and again. Mr. Spurgeon spoke to the children, and 




Infirmary — Stockwell Orphanage. Page i6g. 



in each room he invited the visitor to say a word. He 
himself was happy and full of sportiveness. In one room 
the girls were at work upon arithmetic. Mr. Spurgeon said : 
" ' Now, suppose I should cut Dr. in two [the vis- 
itor chances to be very lavishly endowed by nature in the 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 169 

matter of body], right down lengthwise, what would that 
be like in arithmetic ? ' 

" As there was no reply, he said : 

" ' Why, long division ; and suppose I should cut him all 
up into little bits, what would that be ? Would it not be 
fractions ? And suppose I should walk off alone with Mr. 
and Mrs. Williams [the son-in-law and daughter of the 
visitor] ; what rule would that be like ? The rule of three, 
would it not ? ' 

" The buildings are on the sides of an oblong square. The 
end nearest the street is occupied by the offices, laundry, 
and dining hall ; in the opposite end are the infirmary, 
bath-house, and play-hall ; on the right as you enter are the 
girls' cottages ; on the left, the boys', with the gymnasium. 

" There are no very sick children in the infirmary ; but 
many are placed there when they come in, till they are 
free from all skin diseases and kindred annoyances. No 
sickly children are taken, though not seldom they have an 
inherited tendency to consumption. 

" We next went into the gymnasium, where thirty or forty 
of the boys, under a teacher, went through a series of 
athletic exercises with vigor and skill. The boys wore 
athletic dresses which showed the development of the mus- 
cles and the proportions of the frame. 

" Mr. Spurgeon believes, as I said, in doing the Lord's 
work well; and then, if the boys are strong, hale, athletic, 
agile, it is easy to get places for them ; they are always in 
demand. The boys also are taught free-hand drawing and 
various useful arts. Best of all, they are taught to be 
prompt, cheerful, industrious. All through the Orphanage 
there is a wonderful blending of the most exalted faith and 
the most rugged common sense. 



170 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

" Then there was an exhibition of bell-ringing by some of 
the boys. They gave a March, * Blue Bells,' the West- 
minster Chimes (including the booming of 'Big Ben') 
and ' Home, Sweet Home.' The entertainments given by 
the children are very popular. On a fete day, as on the 
birthday of Mr. Spurgeon, when an exhibition is given 
mth a small charge for admission, there will be thirteen 
thousand persons present. And the boys, by entertainments 
throughout England, earn as much as ten thousand dol- 
lars a year. 

" Every now and then one of the country churches holds 
a festival or harvest home and makes an offering to the 
Orphanage. One small church had just sent in several 
sacks of potatoes, turnips, nuts, apples, cabbages, pears, etc. 
But the apples were not such large, rosy, splendid apples 
as come from New England and Northern New York, and 
many parts of Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Ohio. I won- 
der if there are not some of my readers who would like to 
send a barrel or two of the best winter apples, hand-picked, 
without a bruise, each apple done up separately in corn 
husks or paper, to the Stockwell Orphanage, Clapham 
Road, London, S. W. But they must be prepaid through, 
and there must not be a doubtful apple among them. Only 
the best to the Lord ! 

" Then we went to the bakery. Much of the work is done 
by the boys. A four pound loaf is made to cost four pence. 
In the pantry was the carcass of a sheep just sent (frozen) 
from New Zealand as a gift. 

" The girls have their meals in their several cottages ; 
here, too, they cook and do their house work ^nth only the 
ordinary conveniences. 

" The boys take their meals in the large dining-hall ; at 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. I71 

the end of each table a matron sits. After they were in 
their places, they sang, * Let us with a gladsome 'mind.' I 
was pleased to observe that the first dish (which comes 
twice a week) was baked beans. This shows the spread 
of Boston ideas. 

" I have spoken of the hale, vigorous looks of the children. 
The evident health is all the more noticeable when you 
consider that not a few of theni came jDoorly fed and 
weakly. I have never seen a finer looking set of boys. 

" Up to October 1, 1886, there had been : Boys received, 
857 ; boys left, 617 ; present number, 2-10. Girls received, 
273 ; girls left, 41 ; present number, 232. Total now in 
residence, 472. Total children received : Boys, 857 ; girls, 
273 ; total, 1,130. 

" One of the most interesting features is the inscriptions on 
the walls. One of them commemorates an orphan who 
became a missionary, and died in the service. Five of the 
boys have become ministers, of whom three went to the 
mission field. 

" Pointing to one inscription, Mr. Spurgeon said : 

" ' There is our bank.' I read the words, ' The Lord will 
provide ; ' and, near by, the words : ' My God shall supply 
all your need, according to his riches in glory by Christ 
Jesus.' 

" Mr. Spurgeon said : 

" * This whole Orphanage is an argument for God. I say 
often to infidels, " Will you take this and carry it on for a 
month?"'" 

The three motives leading Mr. Spurgeon to undertake 
the Orphanage were, desire to relieve suffering ; a hope of 
enlisting the lads and girls in the service of God ; and a 
zeal for the honor of God whose power and faithfulness 



172 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

would be signally manifest in the success of a work begun 
and carried on in trust in him. Modifying the language 
of the brave old prophet of Jehovah, he has often proposed 
the test, " The God that answereth by orphanages, let him 
be God ! " 

The work has been to him its own exceeding great 
reward. Probably nowhere, outside of his own home, has 
he been more happy than within the walls of the Orphan- 
age. Nowhere was his tenderness more strikingly expressed. 
We quote briefly from Mr. Gough's story of his visit : 

As we entered the grounds, the boys set up a shout of 
joy at the sight of him. . . . He was like a great boy 
among boys. ..." Will you go to the infirmary ? We 
have one boy very ill of consumption ; he cannot live ; he 
would be disappointed if he knew I had been here, and had 
not seen him." In the cool sweet chamber lay the boy. 
He was very much excited when he saw Mr. Spurgeon. 
Holding the boy's hand in his, he said : 

" Well, my dear boy, you have some precious promises 
all around the room. Now, dear child, you are going to 
die ; you are tired lying here ; soon you will be free from 
all pain ; and you will be at rest. Jesus loves you; he 
bought you with his precious blood, ard he knows what is 
best for you. It seems hard for you to be here and listen 
to the shouts of the healthy boys outside at play. But 
soon Jesus will take you home, and then he will tell you 
the reason, and you will be so glad." 

Then laying his hand on the boy's, without the formality 
of kneeling, he said : " O Jesus Master, this dear child is 
reaching out his thin hand to find thine. Touch him, dear 
Saviour, mth thy living warm clasp. Lift him as he passes 
the river, that his feet be not chilled by the cold water of 
death ; take him home in thine own good time. Comfort 
and cherish him till that good time comes. Show him 
thyself as he lies here, and let him see thee more and more 
as his loving Saviour." After a moment's pause, "Now, my 
dear boy, is there anything you would like ? Would you 
like a canary in a cage to hear him sing in the morning ? 



t 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 175 

Nurse, see that he has a canary to-morrow morning. Good- 
bye, my dear boy ; you will see the Saviour perhaps before 
I do." 

I had seen Mr. Spurgeon holding by his power sixty-five 
hundred people in breathless interest ; I knew him as a 
great man, universally esteemed and beloved ; but, as he 
sat by the bedside of a dying child, he was to me greater 
and grander than when swaying the mighty multitude. 

In fact, his greatness lay largely herein. It was in no 
small degree because he had the spirit which led him to 
sit and pray, holding the hand of a poor dying orphan, 
that he was able to sway the thousands. Cold intellect 
alone would never have made him the great preacher of the 
century. Knowledge puffeth up ; love buildeth up. 

That Mr. Spurgeon, while providing for the young, did 
not forget the old, was shown by the Almshouses for the 
aged and needy members of the Tabernacle, to which he 
gave five thousand pounds from the sum presented him on 
his silver w^edding, and which have been removed from 
their old location and rebuilt near the Tabernacle and 
increased from six in number to eleven. 

The Orphanage, the Almshouses, with many kindred 
enterprises testify to the humaneness and benevolence of 
the old Puritan doctrines; he that loves God loves his 
brother also. 



CHAPTER XI. 

AUTHORSHIP. 

IT may awaken surprise if we say of a man, who was one 
of the most fruitful and widely read authors in history, 
that he was only incidentally an author. He was first of 
all a preacher ; he was an author because he was a preacher. 
Many of his works are made up of his sermons, either pure 
and simple, or in some other form. And all have the 
same aim as sermons ; they are designed to lead men into 
juster beliefs and higher lives. 

The epigram of Charles James Fox, " Does the speech 
read well ? Then it was not a good speech," like all epi- 
grams, needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Fox him- 
self, Webster, Choate, read well, yet the speeches were 
heard with enthusiastic delight; and we may add Mr. 
Spurgeon to the list. 

Of course, the work of his life was " The Metropolitan 
Tabernacle Pulpit," made up of the weekly issue of his ser- 
mons, beginning with January, 1855. The volume of the 
present year is XXXVIII. Up to the present date, March, 
1892, the series contains two thousand two hundred and 
eighteen sermons. There are also in the hands of the pub- 
lishers, Messrs. Passmore & Alabaster, a thousand or 
more sermons reported, but not yet published, so that the 
series can be continued for several years, if the public de- 
mand shall exist after the great personality has ceased as a 
living presence from among us. 
176 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. ' I77 

It is often said " No one reads a sermon," and many 
persons have thought that the power of Mr. Spurgeon's ser- 
mons lay in his voice and in his personal magnetism alone. 
But this theory is set at naught by facts. The sermons, 
beginning with a circulation of ten thousand, attained to a 
regular circulation of twenty-five thousand, rising on some 
occasions much higher. We are prone to think of a pub- 
lished sermon as the ideal of dullness, but the sermons of 
Mr. Spurgeon carried with them, on the printed page, 
much of the powder with which they were clothed, as they 
were heard in the Tabernacle. In the words of the Rt. 
Rev. W. Boyd Carpenter, D. D., Bishop of Ripson : 

The vast congregation which gathered at the Taber- 
nacle, and the still vaster congregations who, in every 
quarter of the world, were readers of his sermons, are evi- 
dence of the industry and energy which kept his utterances 
fresh and crisp for more than thirty years. — (" Contempo- 
rary Review," March, 1892.) 

Of the popularity and power of the sermons, it is not easy 
to speak adequately. Fact outstrips what seems at first ex- 
travagance. If we call the average circulation twenty-five 
thousand, the aggregate circulation, up to this time, cannot be 
less than five and a half million. Wherever the English lan- 
guage goes, in regions where men have not heard of Glad- 
stone, or Beaconsfield, or Grant, or Harrison, they have heard 
of Spurgeon. In America, and in all the English-speaking 
colonies, the sermons have attained a circulation that prob- 
ably equals that of the original edition. If the copyrighl 
law had been passed forty years earlier, there is no know- 
ing how many orphanages Mr. SjDurgeon might have built. 
The sermons have been translated into Dutch, German, 
Welsh, Italian, French, Swedish, Danish, Greek, Spanish, 



178 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

Gsellic, Russian, Lettish, Servian, Hungarian, Maori, 
Arabic, Telugu, Urdu (Hindoostani), Syriac, and we know 
not what beside. To how many thousands on thousands of 
souls these leaves have been for healing, eternity alone can 
tell. 

Also ten or more volumes of select sermons upon special 
classes of topics have appeared, as "Soul-winning Ser- 
mons," "Striking Sermons," "Christmas Sermons," "New 
Year Sermons," " Farm Sermons," " Types and Emblems," 
"Trumpet Calls," "Storm Signals," "The Present Truth," 
" The Royal Wedding." There have also been published 
several volumes of extracts from the sermons : " Glean- 
ings Among Sheaves," and others. 

Next in volume to "The Metropolitan Tabernacle 
Pulpit," is " The Sword and Trowel, a Record of Combat 
with Sin and of Labor for the Lord " (monthly), which 
was begun in 1865, and of which twenty-seven annual 
volumes have appeared. Each number has contained one 
or more articles from Mr. Spurgeon, and every number has 
received his oversight. It has been devoted largely to 
spreading before the church the work done by the Taber- 
nacle, and by the various agencies of which it was the 
center. One of its most characteristic features was the 
" Department of Book Notices," in which Mr. Spurgeon is 
all himself. His notices are candid, bold, discriminating, 
always unmistakable for approval or condemnation. Some- 
times they are sarcastic, often humorous ; always saying a 
great deal in a few words. The reader can but wonder how 
Mr. Spurgeon was able to read so much, notAvithstanding 
the many burdens resting upon him, any one of which 
would have engrossed all the time and all the strength even 
of an extraordinarv man. 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. I79 

On this point, William Wright, D. D., of London, Secre- 
tary of the British and Foreign Bible Society, says, in a 
very striking article in " The Sunday School Times " : 

He was acquainted with all literature. His power of 
reading was perhaps never equalled. He would sit down 
to five or six large books, and master them at one sitting. 
He sat with his left hand on the left side of the book, and, 
pushing his right hand up the page on the right side of the 
book until the page became projected, he turned it over, 
and proceeded to the next page. He took in the contents 
almost at a glance, and his memory never failed him as to 
what he read. He made a point of reading half-a-dozen of 
the hardest books weekly, as he said he wished to rub his 
mind against the strongest ; and there was no skipping. 1 
often tested the thoroughness of his reading. 

"Natural Law in the Spiritual World" reached him 
and me about the same time. I called on him fresh from 
a study of the book. He had just read it, with four or five 
other works, on that day. At tea we began to discuss the 
work. A third party disputed his recollection of certain 
points, whereupon Spurgeon quoted a page, to shoAV that 
the natural and spiritual laws were declared to be " identical," 
and another important page to show how the book erred by 
defect. I looked over the page again, on my return home, 
and I believe he scarcely missed a word in his repetition. 
His power of reading was one of the greatest of his many 
talents. 

There were men who, up to the last, called him unedu- 
cated, as there were men who called William HI. a " Dutch 
boor," as there were men who called Abraham Lincoln 
" an imbecile." Dr. Wright says : 

I was at first surprised to find Mr. Spurgeon consulting 
both the Hebrew and Greek texts. " They say," said he, 
" that I am ignorant and unlearned. Well, let them say, 
and in evervthing, by my ignorance and by my learning, 
let God be glorified." 

Next in magnitude and in the labor demanded was 



180 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

*' The Treasury of David," a commentary upon the Psalms 
in seven large volumes. Though costing eight shillings a 
volume, and though largely addressing itself to plain people, 
ministers and laymen, this has reached a circulation of one 
hundred and twenty thousand volumes, besides we know not 
how many copies in America. This book was a work of 
love ; he delighted in the Psalms. During twenty years he 
had given his time and the time of a secretary to looking 
up and transcribing, in the library of the British Museum, 
and elsewhere, every passage, from writers ancient and 
modern, which could illustrate the Psalms. He digested all 
these, made them his own, and wove them together with 
comments, often drawn from his own deep spiritual expe- 
rience. When, at length, the work was closed, it was with 
sincere sorrow that he took his leave of the companion of 
so many hours : 

"A tinge of sadness is in my spirit as I quit 'The 
Treasury of David,' never to find on earth a richer store- 
house, though the whole palace of revelation is open to me. 
Blessed have been the days spent in meditating, mourning, 
hoping, believing, and exulting with David." 

The character of this book, its compass and its complete- 
ness, illustrate his magnificent genius for hard work. . 

Probably the work which surpassed all others in popu- 
larity and circulation was the two volumes, "John Plough- 
man's Talk " and " John Ploughman's Pictures " ; or, " Plain 
Advice for Plain People." Their circulation exceeded 
four hundred thousand. We do not know where in the 
world to find so much wisdom expressed with such wit. 
John Ploughman is as much superior to " Poor Richard " 
as the character of Spurgeon was more elevated than that 
of Franklin. The ploughman, in his smock frock, with his 



LIFE OF SPURGFON. 181 

whip under his arm, standing by his horse's head, talks to 
his neighbors with transparent and homely simplicity about 
frugality, industry, temperance, debt, marriage, the home, 
about gossip, the ale house, about God and the soul. Not 
a few conversions, not a few reformations have resulted 
from John Ploughman. We doubt if any among the many 
works of Mr. Spurgeon will have a longer life. 

Closely akin to John Ploughman in its spirit is ^'John 
Ploughman's Almanac," a large broadside, adapted to be 
stuck on a cottage wall. It has a pithy maxim for each 
day in the year, with some terse counsel, secular, moral, re- 
ligious, all illustrated with pictures which would gain a 
place in the popular heart. 

"The Salt-Cellars, " in. two volumes, gives, in a perma- 
nent form, the proverbs which had been introduced in 
John Ploughman's Almanac during successive years, with 
homely notes upon them. The author says : 

"The placing of a proverb for every day for tw^enty 
years has cost me great labor ; and I feel that I cannot 
afford to lose the large collection of sentences which I have 
thus brought together." 

These volumes, opened at random, show page after page 
of sharp, quaint, forcible proverbs. We do not know 
where to begin to quote ; we should still less know where 
to leave off. Wit and wisdom are on every page, as, 
" Don't sniff at a bottle which had gin in it a year ago ; " 
" Every pig can grunt ; " " He who is short of grace thinks 
sermons long ; " " If an ass goes a-traveling, he won't come 
home a horse ; " "If every one would mend one, all 
would be mended ; " "If every fool were crowned, we 
should all be kings ; " " Buttons all right are a husband's 
delight ; " " Be clean if you can't be clever ; " "A tame 



182 . LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

tiger is still a tiger ; " "A handful of holy life is worth a 
ton of tall talk." 

Another work abounding in gathered wit and wisdom 
was issued by him under the title of " Smooth Stones from 
Ancient Brooks." It is a collection of sentences from the 
writings of Rev. Thomas Brooks, a Puritan author, of the 
Seventeenth Century, pastor of St. Mary's Church in Fish 
Street, London. 

In " Spurgeon's Shilling Series," the author speaks in a 
plain, direct tone, on most important themes. It includes 
" The Clew of the Maze," "All of Grace," "According to 
Promise," "A Man in Christ," "The Claims of God," 
"First Things First," "A Catechism with Proofs." 

Among his devotional books are, "The Saint and his 
Saviour," his first published volume. ^ " Morning by Morn- 
ing, and Evening by Evening ; or. Daily readings for the 
Family Closet ; " " The Interpreter ; or. Scripture for 
Family Worship ; " " The Golden Alphabet of Praises of 
Holy Scripture;" "The Cheque Book of the Bank of 
Faith," a collection of God's promises arranged for each 
day; also " Sermons in Candles." 

Probably on nothing did Mr. Spurgeon expend more brain 
and heart than on the works intended for his students. 
" Lectures to My Students " are filled with the wisest coun- 
sel to young ministers, often lighted up with wit, and 
always irradiated mth piety. He deems no subject too 
great or too small, if it may profit the young men. From 
the loftiest themes, he goes to counsels about the voice, 
about gestures, cautions against ungainliness. 

1 It illustrates Mr. Spurgeon's modest estimate of himself that he sold the 
copyright of this book for £50, though £1,000 would have been a good bargain 
for the publisher. 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 183 

The volume on " Commenting and Commentaries " em- 
braces brief notices of one thousand four hundred and 
twenty-nine different commentators. The reading of these 
terse annotations make us wonder anew how the author 
found the time to read these commentaries enough to ena- 
ble him to speak of their merit or lack of merit. He had 
the gift of making minutes do the work of hours. The 
volume opens with two lectures on "Commentaries and 
Commentating " and closes with an address on " Eccentric 
Preachers." 

" My Sermon Notes " (four volumes) will undoubtedly be 
very helpful, if they do not tempt young ministers to rely on 
Mr. Spurgeon instead of doing their own work. An emi- 
nent writer published in " The National Baptist " an article 
upon "The Evil Influence of Good Example," showing 
how prone men are to carry to excess their imitation of 
those whom they admire. A word to the wise is sufficient. 

Mr. Spurgeon's last book, " Memories of Stambourne," 
contains recollections of the little village in Essex, where, 
in childhood, he spent many happy days with his grand- 
father. In the preface he says : 

" I have done my best to let the reader see that even 
an humble village has its annals, and that these may be 
worthy of record." 

But it is with sadness that one reads this little book. He 
says: 

"In the end of May, 1891, I suffered fi'om the virulent 
influenza then raging. But all thought I had recovered ; 
and it was judged Avise I should take a change of air. I 
went, for a few days, to the region near Stambourne, 
delighting myself in what I call ' my grandfather's coun- 
try.' . . . But, on the Thui'sday of the week, an over-power- 



184 LIFE OF SPUBGEON. 

iiig headache came on, and I had to hurry home on Friday 
to go to that chamber wherein, for three months, I suffered 
beyond measure, and was often between the jaws of death. 
Now that I trust I am really recovering, I amuse myself 
with arranging what had been previously prepared, and 
with issuing it from the press." 

Alas ! that this hope was vain ! 

In addition to these and to a volume of " Speeches at 
Home and Abroad," there are numberless tracts and short 
pieces, among which his " Introduction to Norcott on Bap- 
tism " should not be forgotten. 

No one can read even a list of his works without being 
impressed with the fact that, abundant as were his resources, 
he had them all well in hand, and amazed at the amount 
he accomplished. And the amazement grows when he con- 
siders that this work was done in such unoccupied moments 
as were left him by the pastorate of the Tabernacle, by 
"the care of all the churches," by the College and the 
Orphanage, and by almost daily paroxysms of agony. On 
almost the last occasion when the writer heard him speak, 
in his address to the London Association, October, 1886, he 
said: 

^•' By three o'clock this afternoon, my rheumatic gout will 
come on with such violence that I shall have to drop every- 
thing and go to bed." 

That he achieved so much was due to his own uncon- 
querable will, sustained by the grace of God. 

It is perhaps proper to say a word of the relation of Mr. 
Spurgeon to Hymnology. In 1866, he prepared "Our 
Own Hymn Book," intended especially for the Tabernacle. 
Dr. Burrage, in his valuable work on "Baptist Hymn 
Writers," says : 



LIFE OF SrURGEON. 135 

" To this admirable collection Mr. Spurgeon's own con- 
tributions were fourteen psalms and ten hymns, with three 
which he had altered. Of the hymns, a favorite is that 
which commences : 

" Sweetly the holy hymn 

Breaks on the morning air-, 
Before the world with smoke is dim, 
We meet to offer prayer." 

But the hymn by Mr. Spurgeon, which he himself likes 

best, and which has become best known, is the following : 

" The Holy Ghost is here 

Where saints in prayer agree; 
As Jesus parting gift, he's near 
Each pleading company." 



CHAPTER XII. 

MR. SPURGEON AS I SAW HIM. 

W. E. HATCHER, T>. D.^ 

FREQUENTLY, when I was with Mr. Spurgeon, it in- 
terested me greatly to observe with what reverence and 
delicacy he was always treated. There was nothing of the 
noisy character of an ovation. Every one seemed subdued by 
his presence and accorded him a respect that was almost sug- 
gestive of worship. I sat Avith him in a carriage one Sun- 
day, and while we rolled over Clapham Road, the swarms 
of his people, on the way, seemed instinctively to pause, and 
to be made inexpressibly happy by the smallest token of 
his recognition. With what tender grace he greeted ,them 
I could never forget. I accompanied him in some of his 
journeys, and entered with him into a number of private 
homes. Everywhere he received the most reverential con- 
sideration. Indeed, I had a fancy at times that he was un- 
consciously oppressed by these attentions. He had the 
simplicity of a child, and did not ask to be hailed as great. 
With no undue familiarity and yet in a candid, outright 
way, I made quite free with him, took issue with him, re- 
belled against his decisions, made such retorts as I could to 
his humorous hits, and treated him as I would have treated 
many of my less distinguished friends. He not only took 

iRev. Dr. Hatcher, the eminent pastor of Grace Baptist Church, Richmond, 
Virginia, during his visit to England in 18S8, was favored with unusual oppor- 
tunities of seeing Mr, Spurgeon, and, at the request of the author, has kindly 
written this chapter of reminiscences. 

186 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. jg-r 

it in good part, but seemed to relish it. He had my fullest 
love, and knew that I could not be intentionally offensive, 
and I drifted to the conclusion that he gave me so much of 
his time, in part at least, because he liked to have a man 
who treated him like common folk. 

Almost every stranger who approached him was eager to 
testify in the most grateful terms to the good that he had re- 
ceived from his ministryo Quite often I went into his 
office, in the rear of his pulpit, after the services in the 
Tabernacle, when he would admit strangers. What multi- 
tudes swarmed into the halls and passages, and waited for 
the honor of grasping him by the hand ! It was a long line 
that filed by him tmce on every Sunday. With some it 
was a moment of undisguised pride and honor long coveted ; 
they expressed this happiness and moved on. One elegant 
and attractive gentleman, with a tear in his voice, told him 
how the last days of his mother had been gladdened by 
reading his sermons. Another, in a single sentence, ex- 
pressed his everlasting obligation for having been helped 
in finding Christ by one of his sermons. 

Mr. Spurgeon worked all the time under weights. It is 
doubtful whether he had one moment of absolute freedom 
from pain for years of liis later life. 

Rheumatic gout was the supreme affliction of his life. I 
suppose it grew worse and worse. I remember, with un- 
dimmed vividness, the first Sunday morning in August, 
1888, on which I entered the Tabernacle. I had an almost 
childish curiosity to see him. My first impressions were 
saddened by the marks of suffering on his face, and by the 
confessions of weakness and pain which were heard in his 
prayers. Afterward, among many other things which he 
told me, he said that he suffered sorely from the swellings 



138 LIFE OF SPURGEON: 

of his feet and hands. Upon leaving his bed in the morn- 
ing he would have much difficulty in using his feet. They 
would be much swollen and acutely sensitive to touch, and 
he had to rub and use them by degrees until he could 
stand upon them. As a fact his gait was slow and un- 
steady, and not unfrequently he had falls that were pain- 
ful and dangerous. 

He knew not how deeply he touched my heart as he 
pictured to me the suffering of his right hand. Often 
when he waked in the morning, his right hand was as rig- 
idly locked as if it had been petrified. Not a joint could 
be unbent by the force of its own muscles. He had to take 
it finger by finger, and joint by joint, and so work and 
loosen its machinery as to restore it to action. The mem- 
ory of that hand may well stimulate suffering saints not to 
faint in their toils. 

On account of his rheumatic ailments, he had to be 
exceedingly 'watchful of his health. He was hable to be 
injured by bad air or improper food. To get rid of the 
London damps and fogs, he went every fall for several 
months to Southern France. He was a strict vegetarian. 
One Sunday, I dined with him at the home of one of his 
members. He sat next to the lady of the house. She pre- 
sided over a dish of pheasants, and during the meal I dis- 
covered a small slice on his plate. Without looking his 
way, I remarked that, of all the people on earth, the 
Americans must be the most stupid. 

"Why so, my brother?" 

" Why, they labor under the hallucination that a pheas- 
ant does not belong to the vegetable kingdom ; but, as in 
this country, vegetarians eat pheasants, my people are 
scientifically belated." 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. ^ 189 

" You Americans are generally right ; but this good lady 
laid the pheasant on my plate, and I really believe it is the 
first taste of meat I have had for two years." He had to 
guard carefully against anything that would tend to fatten 
him and he used " saccharine " instead of sugar for sweet- 
ening his coffee. His pleasures in eating were narrowly 
limited. 

There was nothing striking in his physique except his 
head. He was about five feet eight inches in height, 
inclined to superfluous flesh and by no means graceful. 
Taking tea with hini once, I congratulated him upon find- 
ing Mrs. Spurgeon so much more robust than I had feared. 
His reply was : 

"Ah, my poor wife is all lilies and no roses." Then he 
remarked that there was one point in providence upon which 
he could get no light, that was that the Lord had created 
him so homely. He said that his father was accounted a 
handsome man, and as for his grandfather, he stood " a man 
among men." 

His mind was self-poised and thoroughly mastered in all 
its forces. Every power seemed to be fully equipped and 
always on duty. His mind never halted under any neAV 
pressure. In the Sunday procession which passed by to get 
his handshake, one of the names presented w^as that of 
Dr. J. K. Kendrick. Instantly his face brightened : 

" Have I the honor of shaking the hand of the Dr. 
Kendrick who gave us the charming biography of the last 
Mrs. Judson ? " 

The doctor frankly admitted that he was not the author, 
but his brother, Dr. A. C. Kendrick, and received many 
words of fraternal compliment and affection. 

A friend in New York had kindly sent Mr. Spurgeon a 



190 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

note that I would be in London during the summer. 
Several brethren were with me as, one Sunday morning, I 
approached him in the midst of the long procession. The 
brother immediately in front of me called my name. 
Instantly he said : 

" I have read about you, and I would like to know you." 
He never suffered for lack of a name or of a word. 

The goodness of Mr. Spurgeon was incomparably charm- 
ing. He never could have been the preacher that he was 
if he had not been so spotless, simple-minded, and trans- 
parent. He had gathered no trappings of earthly glory. 
He hated sham with infinite loathing, and loved the truth 
as the eye loves light. An atmosphere of devoutness encir- 
cled him. 

A party of American gentlemen spent the day with him 
at Westwood. They saw him in his freest and happiest 
mood, and heard him talk for hours about the " Down 
Grade " contest, then at the fiercest. That he was in the 
midst of a great conflict, he well knew, and that a number 
of his friends were seeking to play a double part was more 
than he could hide from himself. Whatever the right or 
wrong of the controversy, he suflered some grievous wrongs. 
It was a thrilling experience to hear him discuss the situa- 
tion in his own impassioned way. He was no velvet-fin- 
gered fighter for his Lord. With his right hand, he struck 
the opposition many terrific blows, and his defense of what 
he believed to be the truth was the soul of eloquence. 

But in all the glow of his passion and the vigor of his 
utterance there was no venom ; he was full of love and had 
bitterness for none. The spirit which he displayed was so 
lofty, magnanimous, Christ like, that when the Americans, 
at six o'clock, left Westwood, their only topic was Mr. 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. jgj 

Spurgeon's ineffable gentleness and nobility. They knew 
before that he was great, but not until then how childlike 
and good he was. 

In many meetings and often extended interviews, I never 
detected anything which suggested the slightest conscious- 
ness of greatness, or the least disposition to disparage others. 
Before the Lord, he was as a little child, trembling with 
weakness and full of praise ; before men he was ready to 
help the weakest and to love those who despitefully used 
him. His nature was imperial ; he commanded by a right 
which few could question. He had the magnetism to attract, 
the wisdom to understand, the tact to combine, and the force 
to impel them. 

Those who knew Mr. Spurgeon most intimately regret 
that so much has been said about his position on the " Com- 
munion Question." It can hardly be truthfully maintained 
that he had any position on that subject, in its controversial 
aspects. His mind was so deeply absorbed in other views 
of truth, that he never gave a critical study to the " Com- 
munion Controversy." At least, he never made any deliver- 
ances on this subject that could be accepted as authoritative. 

Since his death, earnest efforts have been made to use 
him to the injury of American Baptists. I know that this 
would not be in harmony with his own spirit. 

During my stay in London, I had many frank and unre- 
strained conversations mth him. On two occasions we 
talked quite freely with reference to the " Communion Ques- 
tion." As these interviews were in no sense confidential, I 
will carefully reproduce, in substance, what he said. 

The first conversation took place in his study at West- 
wood, where, on August 11, 1888, with Dr. Henry Mc- 
Donald, of Atlanta, Georgia, and Rev. L. R. Thornhil], of 



192 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

Manchester, Virginia, I spent five hours in his company. 
He seemed to be unusually free from pain, and displayed 
more buoyancy and freshness than usual. The " Communion 
Question " was brought up by the remark of one of us that, 
at the administration of the Lord's Supper a few nights 
before at the Tabernacle, he gave no invitation to outsiders 
of any name. He replied that that was true at that time, 
but that at other times he did give invitations, which 
included some who were not Baptists. One of us also 
expressed regret that the English and American Baptists 
were not in harmony on this question ; and he was asked 
to give his reasons for inviting those whom he regarded as 
unbaptized to the Lord's Table. He understood thoroughly 
that the request was not made in the spirit of contention, 
but with a sincere desire to understand his views as well as 
his practice. 

It would not be possible for me to forget his answer, for 
it broke upon me as something quite novel in the history 
of the controverted question. He said that he gave' the 
invitation ^^ very largely as a matter of hospitality." He 
must have observed the surprise with which this statement 
was received, for he made haste to explain what he meant. 
He said that many strangers attended the Tabernacle, and, 
as many of them were far away from home, he felt that it 
was hospitable on his part to invite them to the Supper. 
The impression left upon me by his remark was about the 
same as if he had said, that, if one were at his house when 
the dinner bell rang, he would feel it incumbent on him to 
invite the visitor to his table, but that he was not keeping 
an open house. 

He was also quite particular in explaining the regulations 
which his church had adopted with reference to outside 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 193 

persons coming to the Lord's Table. No one could go to 
the Table without a ticket. If persons came more than once, 
they were asked if they did not wish to be introduced to 
the pastor. At their third coming, if they were not willing 
to join the church, they were urged to seek membership 
elsewhere. 

He added with evident zest that often those who came to 
the Lord's Table gladly accepted an introduction to 
him, and that, in very many cases, after talking with them 
on baptism, he had the pleasure of baptizing them. 

Nothing was more apparent in this conversation than his 
intense belief in immersion as alone constituting Christian 
baptism. Indeed, I have not heard any man talk, who im- 
pressed me as being a more sincere and uncompromising 
believer in immersion. Ministers and others who are quick 
to use him for striking the Baptists on the " Communion Ques- 
tion " ought to be candid enough to let people know where he 
stood on the subject of baptism. 

Mr. Spurgeon's church does not admit any members who 
have not been immersed. It is for people who quote him 
to say whether there is any more bigotry in shutting out the 
unbaptized from the Lord's Table than there is in denying 
them membership in our churches. 

Mr. Spurgeon's " hospitality " argument must strike others 
as it did those of us present on the occasion, as utterly 
unsatisfactory. It was simply a sentimental prompting, and 
did not really touch the great question which cluster around 
the Lord's Supper. It also showed that he utterly ignored 
the popular grounds upon which " Open Communion " is 
practiced. 

In the following October, being again in London, I was 
invited to accompany Mr. Spurgeon on a visit to Leyton- 



194 LIFE OF SPURGEON, 

stone, where he dedicated a new house of worship, and near 
which we spent the night together. Except when asleep, 
we were constantly together for over twenty-four hours, and 
during much of that time no other persons were present. 
It gave me an opportunity of drawing him out on various 
subjects by many candid questions, every one of which he 
answered with childlike simplicity and courtesy. While 
traveling on the train, I somewhat playfully expressed my 
wish to see some strict, well-rounded Baptists before I left 
England, and asked him if there were any Baptists of that 
type in London. He quickly replied : 

" Why, yes, a multitude of them." 

When I inquired further, if they had any churches of 
their own, he said : 

" I suppose that they have at least one hundred churches 
in this city," adding, that he was constrained to say that 
many of them were not very progressive, but that they were 
composed of really good people. 

He took evident pleasure in giving me such instructions 
as would enable me to find some of the leading " Close Com- 
munion " Baptists of London. Some of these brethren I had 
the honor of meeting, and found 'them to be among the 
noblest of God's people. They spoke in the highest terms 
of Mr. Spurgeon, and said that in his heart he was really 
with them. Dr. Edward Parker, President of the Man- 
chester Baptist College, when in America in 1889, said that 
Mr. Spurgeon was hardly looked upon in England as an 
"Open Communionist." Mr. Spurgeon said of himself: 

"As compared with the bulk of English Baptists, I am a 
* Strict Communionist,' as my church fellowship is strictly 
of the baptized." 

During the conversation, on our way to Leytonstone, I 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 195 

referred to the report that he had spoken bitterly against 
the " Close Communion " Baptists of America. He said^that 
he was aware that such an evil report had been put in cir- 
culation against him, and declared that it was utterly im- 
possible for him ever to have said any such thing. He 
admitted that it was impossible for him to remember every- 
thing that he had ever said, but added that he knew what 
was in his heart, and that there was nothing there that would 
prompt such harsh criticisms against any. He was evidently 
pained beyond measure that his American brethren should 
have been wounded by a misrepresentation so willful and 



" I have," he said, " not one word of unfriendly criticism 

to utter against my Baptist brethren beyond the Atlantic. 

... If I were to come to America to live, I would join a 

* Close Communion' church, and conform myself to its 

practices in regard to the Lord's Supper." 

He said that it was impossible for an outsider fully to 
understand the Baptist situation in England. Even the little 
that I saw and heard convinced me that American Baptists 
need to exercise charity and forbearance toward their Eng- 
lish brethren. They have persecutions and complications to 
which we are strangers ; if they do not hold all of the dis- 
tinctive views for which we stand, we ought, at least, to 
rejoice for such testimony in favor of the truth as they are 
so nobly bearing. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

MR. SPURGEON's jubilee. 

OFTEN the Lord permits his servants to spend a lifetime 
of labor seeing little of reward or encouragement, 
upheld only by the word and promise of Jehovah. So he 
dealt with Mackay of Uganda, and with other holy men 
who " died in faith, not having received the promises, but 
having seen them afar off." But sometimes he permits his 
servants to drink of the brook in the way, to see of the 
desire of their souls, to behold the glory of the Lord in the 
land of the living. This joyous experience the Lord 
granted in rich measure to his servant, Mr. Spurgeon. 

Thursday, June 19, 1884, the fiftieth birthday of Mr. 
Spurgeon, Avas celebrated by the church and by his many 
friends, as his Jubilee. Unable to crowd into a single day 
the expression of their joy and affection, they began the 
service on Wednesday evening. Perhaps we cannot better 
introduce the story of these two days than from the " Pall 
Mall Gazette " of June 19 : 

" There is an Essex bumpkin," once remarked one of the 
most eminent of our men of letters, who could certainly 
never be accused of any theological sympathy with the 
pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle, "who came up from 
the country thirty years ago, and by his own single, unaided 
energy has done more for the civilization and Christianization 
of Southern London than all the archbishops and bishops 
of the Establishment." It is no common work that elicited 
such an encomium, nor is it a common man whose fiftieth 
birthday is celebrated this week as a kind of religious jubilee. 

The most surprising thing to most people will be the 
196 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 197 

discovery that Mr. Spurgeon is only fifty years old. He has 
been so constantly before the public for so many years that 
the first impression on most minds on hearing of his jubilee 
is that it is a celebration of the fiftieth year of his ministry, 
not the fiftieth of his life. But Mr. Spurgeon is in reality 
only fifty years old, although for thirty years he has been 
one of the best known men of the time. At first, he was a 
curiosity, then a notoriety, but he has long since been recog- 
nized as one of the first celebrities of his day. 

His position is absolutely unique. Of all the ministers, 
Established or Non-established, in the metropolis, whose 
names w^ere familiar when Mr. Spurgeon came up from the 
country, not one now survives, and there is at the present 
day no man who, whether for universal popularity or solid 
work, can hold a candle to the " Essex bumpkin." Seldom 
has any life more remarkably successful been lived for thirty 
years before the eyes of all men, with such uninterrupted 
good fortune. Other men have had vicissitudes, reverses, 
disasters. Mr. Spurgeon's only vicissitudes have arisen from 
his continually increasing influence. He has had anxiety, 
no doubt, as other men ; but it has only been the anxiety of 
growth, never the misery of decline. His church has 
increased and multiplied, and institution after institution 
has grown up under its fertilizing shade ; one enterprise after 
another has demanded his services, and nothing has failed. 
Everything, whether it be an orphanage or a magazine, a 
tabernacle or a college, has prospered under his hands. The 
real Bishop of South London, he is also one of the most 
voluminous and popular authors of our time ; the head of a 
College which has sent out five hundred students into the min- 
istry ; the founder and maintainer of an Orphanage in which 
four hundred orphans find a comfortable home, the director 
of a Colportage Association, the Editor of a magazine, and 
the Presiding Engineer of the pent-up energies of a church 
of five thousand members. Add to this a personal popu- 
larity so great as only to be measured by the virulence of 
the abuse over which it has triumphed, and we need no 
other explanation of the enthusiasm of the jubilee which is 
celebrated to-day. 

In 1853, when he came to London, the London Baptist 
Association had thirty-two churches, with four thousand 



198 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

one hundred and ten members ; there were in England one 
thousand one hundred and thirty-four Baptist churches, with 
one hundred and six thousand four hundred and forty- 
eight members. In 1884, there were in the Metropolitan 
Association, which, as w^e understand it, corresponds to the 
London, two hundred and thirty-one churches, with two 
hundred and eighty-one chapels, and forty-six thousand four 
hundred and ninety-seven members; and in England at 
large, there were two thousand nine hundred and twenty-six 
churches, wdth two hundred and nineteen thousand four 
hundred and fourteen members. It is entirely safe to say 
that this large progress had been due, in great measure, to 
the impulse which the denomination had received from the 
labors and from the success of Mr. Spurgeon. 

Nor was it alone upon his public labors that the blessing 
of God rested. God's smile was no less upon his home. 
His marriage, to which we have alread}^ referred, proved 
the source of unmeasured blessing to him and to all who 
were brought under his far-reaching influence. Rarely has 
a wife more amply realized the almost inspired ideal. 

A being breathing thoughtful breath, 
A traveler between life and death ; 
The reason firm, the temperate will, 
Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill : 
A perfect woman, nobly planned. 
To warn, to comfort, and command ; 
And yet a Spirit still, and bright 
With something of an angel light. 

The fact that Mrs. Spurgeon still survives forbids us to 
speak, as we gladly would of her graces of character, of 
her womanly gentleness, of her divine affection, of all the 
high qualities which made her his counterpart and helper. 
The only shadow that rested upon his home was the extreme 



LIFE OF SFURGEON. 199 

and proloDged physical feebleness of Mrs. Spurgeon. But, 
in answer to earnest prayer, offered at his especial request, 
her suffering has been for some years much alleviated, and 
she was able, to the surprise and joy of her many friends, to 
be present at the Jubilee. 

Mr. Spurgeon's twin sons, Charles and Thomas, born in 
1856, were both baptized in youth, upon the same day, and 
both devoted themselves to the ministry. Charles became 
the successful pastor of the Church in Greenwich, London. 
Thomas, who is far from rugged in constitution, is unable 
to endure the fog and dampness of London, and has resided 
for many years at the antipodes. He is now laboring most 
efficiently in New Zealand, and has been able only occa- 
sionally to make a brief visit home, though soon compelled 
to return to his distant field. 

Years before, in compliance with the earnest suggestion 
of Mr. Spurgeon, who was oppressed with the increasing 
burden of care and labor which attended upon enlarging 
success, the church had called as co-pastor, his brother, 
Rev. James Archer Spurgeon, who devoted his great execu- 
tive ability to the management of the business of the Tab- 
ernacle and of the College, and who, in the occasional 
absences of the pastor, filled the pulpit very acceptably, 
affording thus to the older brother a welcome and much 
needed relief. 

On the evening of Wednesday, the day before the Jubi- 
lee, the Tabernacle was crowded almost to suffocation. 
When Mr. and Mrs. Spurgeon came upon the platform 
they were greeted with irrepressible enthusiasm, the rare 
presence of Mrs. Spurgeon giving an added joy to the even- 
ing. The immense audience rose to their feet in reverence, 
affection, and welcome. Mr. Spurgeon was also accom- 



200 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

panied by his venerable father, Kev. John Spurgeon, by his 
brother and co-pastor, Rev. James A. Spurgeon, and by his 
son. Rev. Charles Spurgeon. At the request of Mr. Spur- 
geon, two brethren representing the deacons and the elders 
offered prayer for the divine blessing on all the exercises of 
the two days. 

As Mr. Spurgeon arose, he was greeted with renewed ap- 
plause. Speaking with deep feeling, in his own homely and 
familiar and, at times, humorous way, he said : 

" I feel overwhelmed with gratitude to you, and because 
of you to God. I cannot speak much, especially after the 
kind things which many of you have said to me. I have 
much to do not to cry ; indeed, I have had a little distilla- 
tion of the eyes quietly, but I try to keep myself all right." 

He then expressly referred all the successes at the Taber- 
nacle to " the glorious work of the Holy Spirit." He utterly 
disclaimed all credit, to himself for " the great and long con- 
tinued success." " Our American friends are generally very 
cute judges. They say, over and over again, * Why, he is 
no orator ! We have scores of better preachers than Mr. 
Spurgeon in America ; but he preaches the gospel as some 
of our celebrated men do not preach it.' I have tried to 
saturate our dear friends with the doctrines of grace. I 
defy the devil himself to get that out of you, if God, the 
Holy Spirit, once puts it into you. 

. " Death to fine preaching ; there is no good in it. All 
the glory of words and the wisdom of men will certainly 
come to naught. But the simple testimony of the good will 
of God to men and of his sovereign choice of his own people, 
will stand the test, not only of the few years during which 
I have preached it, but of all the ages of this world till 
Christ shall come. 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 201 

" I do not believe that the dry dead do'^.trine of some men 
could ever have evoked such sympathy in men's hearts as my 
gospel has aroused in yours. ... I cannot see anything about 
myself that you should love me. I would not go across the 
street to hear myself preach. But I dare not say more upon 
that point, because my wife is here. It is the only point 
upon which we decidedly differ. I thank you with all my 
heart for your generous esteem." 

Mr. J. W. Harrald, Mr. Spurgeon's private secretary, 
read a list of institutions, sixty-six in number, centering 
about the Metropolitan Tabernacle. 

Mr. Spurgeon then called on Mr. Moody, thanking God 
for " raising him up and sending him to England to preach 
the gospel to great numbers with such plainness and power." 

Mr. Moody, who was deeply moved, spoke of the great 
debt he owed Mr. Spurgeon. 

" While I was here, I followed Mr. Spurgeon everywhere. 
When people at home asked me if I had gone to this and 
that cathedral, I had to say ' no.' But I can tell them some- 
thing about Mr. Spurgeon's meetings." 

Deacon D. AY. Carr read an elaborate address to Mr. 
Spurgeon on behalf of the church. Mr. Spurgeon said : 

" It is a great mercy I am not expected to speak after 
that." 

The pastor then introduced his venerable father, Rev. 
John Spurgeon, seventy-three years of age, who said : 

" God's love has made me happy ; and he has indeed 
been embodied love to raise up two such sons as I have. God 
bless this church, the Orphanage, the College, and all the 
institutions." 

"I did not originally choose him as my father," Mr. 
Spurgeon said, " but if it had been left to me I would have 



202 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

chosen no other. And now comes my brother. If there is 
a good man on the earth, I think it is my brother." 

Pastor James A. Spurgeon said : 

" There is no one in the world Avho has so good a brother 
as I have. The esteem in which I have held him has only 
been equalled by the love I bear him. I consider it the 
greatest honor God could have conferred upon me to make 
me co-partner in my brother's work. A grander leader no 
man could possibly desire. The secret of my brother's suc- 
cess, so far as I have solved it, is prayer. I shall have to 
add, I do not know anybody who works harder than my 
brother. A great deal of my brother's success is due to his 
geniality." 

Mr, Spurgeon then introduced his son, Rev. Charles 
Spurgeon, who said : 

" Dear friends, I am here to-night to speak for two, for 
we are as one, Charlie and Tommie. ... I have gone into 
my father's study and sat at his feet to learn many a time, 
but I never could open my mouth before him. When he 
said, ' Charlie, what are you going to preach from ? ' I 
wished I could get to the other side of the door as quickly 
as possible, for I was afraid. If I told him the text, he 
would want to know what the divisions were, and would 
probably say that the middle one was wrong." 

Mr. Spurgeon then introduced his pupil and friend. Rev. 
Archibald G. Brown, who referred to the sermon of Mr. 
Spurgeon which led him to Christ. 

" Twenty-three years ago to-morrow I was baptized by Mr. 
Spurgeon on this low^er platform. . . . Mr. Spurgeon has 
given all in the College a passion for souls. Above all 
things, w^e desire that God will make us the means of win- 
ning many to the Saviour." 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 203 

Addresses were presented from the students of the Col- 
lege, from the Tabernacle Sundayrschool, and from the 
Baptist ministers of France. 

The evening was closed with prayer by Mr. Spurgeon. 
" Thy servants remember dark days and times of need and 
great difficulty when we had nothing to stay ourselves upon 
except our God ; and we never were better stayed. Never 
were we happier ; never was there an intenser joy in our 
spirit than when w^e felt we were out of our depth, and yet 
could not drown, but could safely swim." 

On Thursday evening, June 19, the Earl of Shaftes- 
bury presided. A list was read of the various societies 
represented and of addresses, letters, and telegrams re- 
ceived. 

Earl Shaftesbury then spoke of "Our admirable, our 
invaluable friend, Charles Haddon Spurgeon. . . . You see 
him now as he began : the same true, simple man that he 
was, not puffed up by success, but rather humbled by it. 
. . . "What a powerful administrative mind our friend pos- 
sesses is shown by the list which has been read of the socie- 
ties and associations constructed by his genius. ... A 
kinder, better, honester, nobler man never existed on the 
face of the earth. . . . We wish and pray that the rest of 
his life may be according to its beginning : that he may go 
on increasing in service, in depth of feeling, in winning souls 
to the Lord." 

Canon Basil AVilberforce (grandson of the Wilberforce) 
was the next speaker, and was follow^ed by J. W. Todd, 
D. D., on behalf of the London Baptist Association. O. P. 
Gifford, D. D., presented an address from the Baptist min- 
isters of Boston. 

Rt. Hon. Sir William MacArthur, M. P., formerly Lord 



204 I^IFE OF 8PURGE0N. 

Mayor, made an address, and was followed by Rev. New- 
man Hall. 

Mr. Olney, of the Tabernacle, presented the Spurgeon 
Jubilee Fund, of four thousand five hundred pounds, which 
Mr. Spurgeon distributed among the various enterprises of 
the Tabernacle, as he had done the gift of six thousand 
two hundred and forty-eight pounds given him in 1879, on 
the twenty-fifth anniversary of his settlement. 

And so, amid mutual love, amid mutual blessings without 
number, amid the assurance of salvation and the enjoyment 
of present service, the jubilee closed. 

At this point, after witnessing the great results of the first 
thirty-one years of his ministry, it is perhaps proper to ask 
the oft-repeated question, " What was the secret of his suc- 
cess ? " It is true, life is essentially a mystery. We can 
explain the power of the steam engine by the expansion of 
steam ; we know how many volts are necessary to accomplish 
certain results by the electric motor ; but the germination 
and the maintenance of life, physical or spiritual, pass our 
comprehension. Yet it may not be in vain to ask the 
question. Even if the answer be but approximate and inade- 
quate, it may have its lesson. 

First of all, we put the explanation where Mr. Spurgeon 
always put it, in the blessing of God. This blessing of God 
was conveyed in the bestowment of the Holy Spirit. And 
this gift was granted in answer to prayer. He lived in an 
atmosphere of prayer ; he was always in a state of mind to 
which prayer was not incongruous, but natural. As he was 
walking one day with Dr. Hoyt through the woods, they 
came to a fallen tree; Mr. Spurgeon said, "Let us pray 
here," as if he had said, " Let us sit down and rest." And 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 205 

his prayers had a man behind them. God does not regard 
anonymous prayers any more than sensible men regard 
anonymous letters. There was a man, spiritual, hallowed, 
self-sacrificing, in earnest. And he was acquainted with 
God. He knew God by heart, as a man knows his friend. 
He knew how to address him ; how to prevail with him. 

All this on the divine side, or on the divine-human. But 
when God acts through a man, it is because he is a man 
through whom God can act, because he has certain qualities 
either by nature or by divine endowment. 

We have already spoken, every one has spoken, of his 
marvelous voice. That he had an enormous capacity for 
labor, every reader of these pages must be aware, unless we 
have written in vain. He was a miracle of clearness of 
diction and directness in speech. He had the moral bravery 
which enabled him to stand alone with all the world on the 
other side. A man who has passed beyond fear is a man 
who cannot be left out in our reckoning. 

He believed. Everything was a reality. When he was 
in his study, when he went into the pulpit, ever}i:hing was 
a reality. He stood as God's representative to man, and as 
man's representative to God. The man who believes every 
word he says is a power. God works sometimes through 
narrow-minded men, sometimes through weak men, but 
always through men who believe. 

He had that magnetism which sends its currents through 
an audience, w^hich is often a power for evil, but which, 
when sanctified, is one of Heaven's greatest gifts. He loved, 
and love is the great power in the universe. He had the 
power of organization, w^hich enabled him to multiply him- 
self, and to get out of every one associated with him the 
utmost that was in him. 



206 LIFE OF 8PUBGE0N. 

"Any fool," said Dr. J. A. Broadus, " can work himself; 
it takes a wise man to get work out of other people." 

His ear was always bent to hear what God had said 
through his word. The book was not centuries and mil- 
lenniums old : it was fresh. His interpretations were his 
own. 

Every soldier knows the difference between a concentric 
fire and a diverging fire. All his powers were trained and 
concentrated upon one single point, not his own reputation, 
not some coveted position, but the salvation of men. He 
achieved that great victory for want of which so many 
gifted preachers are almost a failure. He absolutely forgot 
himself. This self-forgetfulness spoke in every word, ex- 
pressed itself in every tone. He was never oratorical. He 
was never declamatory. His tone was that of the most 
earnest conversation, quiet, yet penetrating and far-reaching^ 

And the whole man — powers, affections, reason, pathos, 
humor — all were presented a living sacrifice, as if he would 
realize what God could make of a man absolutely and 
without reserve devoted to his service. 

And he preached the old doctrines which, let men say 
what they will, have the power to reach men's hearts and to 
mold men's lives — the old doctrines, whose power has been 
shown in the dying chamber, in the strength of manhood, 
on the field of battle, in the lonely cell, at the martyr's 
stake, the doctrines which, made Bunyan and Cromwell 
Whitfield and Wesley, Knox and Havelock, Luther and 
Coligny. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

NONCONFORMITY — THE DENOMINATION — " DOWN GRADE." 

rriHE religious question in Great Britain is that of the liber- 
-L ation of religion from State support and State control* 
It is not at all a question of the personal character of the 
State clergy, or, necessarily, of the quality of the religious 
teaching imparted by them. The question is, " Shall the State 
tax all its citizens to maintain the ministers of any one form 
of religion, a form which is professed, perhaps by a half of 
the people, perhaps by a minority, possibly by an insignifi- 
cant minority ? " And, still further, " Shall the State make 
the church, which is thus established, a means of inflicting 
social and political oppression and educational disability 
upon all who have the manhood to avow their conscientious 
dissent from the polity, the forms, or the doctrines of the 
church thus by law established ? " 

It is nothing to the purpose to say that there are among 
the clergy thus sustained by the State many polished gen- 
tlemen, many erudite scholars, many devout Christians. 
And it is liable to arouse emotions inconsistent with gospel 
meekness when the dignitaries in State and Church, after 
shutting out through generations and centuries the Non- 
conformists from the great universities and from social 
amenities and from the smiles of the court, then say, " You 
are not educated ; you are not cultivated ; you are not gen- 
tlemen." 

Descended from generations of Nonconformists ; having 

207 



208 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

in his veins the blood of the men who fought beside the 
Ironsides, and in his soul the doctrines of the Puritans ; en- 
dowed with a rugged sense of independence ; incapable of 
submitting to unjust dictation ; intent upon studying the 
Bible for himself; animated by a justice that impelled him 
to give to all the rights which he claimed as his own, — there 
could be no question as to the position which Mr. Spurgeon 
would hold as to Nonconformity. In fact, he himself, as 
also every step in his career, was an argument. Shut out 
from Oxford and Cambridge, God had made him the first 
preacher of his time. Under his lead, a church destitute 
of wealth had erected a house of worship which was the 
centre of Christian influences incomparably greater than 
radiated from St. Paul's and Canterbury and Rochester, 
and, we do not hesitate to say, from all the cathedrals in 
the kingdom. Mr. Spurgeon, the Tabernacle, the Pastors' 
College, the sermons and books going forth by the million 
to all the world, — these were in themselves thousand-tongued 
witnesses to the power and greatness of the voluntary prin- 
ciple, all declaring that truth alone is vastly more efficient 
for good than truth and power combined. There was great 
significance in the fact that, up tO 1891, the annual meet- 
ings of the Liberation Society were held in the Tabernacle. 
Mr. Spurgeon had a majestic common sense which judged 
of every institution, not by the appeal it made to the taste, 
but by its practical value to mankind. It is delightful, as 
you ride along through the rural districts of England to 
see, now and then, rising above the trees, the stone spire of 
a parish church, and about it the little churchyard with 
the gleaming gravestones. All these form a beautiful fea- 
ture in the landscape. We know that, on Sunday, the music 
is unexceptionable, that all is conducted with faultless taste, 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 209 

that the light streaming through the stained window falls 
upon the dignified figure of the squire, and upon the classic, 
clear cut features of the clergyman, whose scarlet hood tells 
that he studied at one of the great seats of learning. But 
when you think that, of the rural congregation, few have 
the least idea what it is all about, that perhaps the service 
is all intoned so as to be in an unknown tongue ; when you 
look over the fields and realize that the one-tenth which the 
poor farmers are forced to pay on their crops makes all the 
difference between their making a living and not making it, — 
then, perhaps, you say that there are two sides to the ques- 
tion, or rather that there is but one side. 

Mr. Spurgeon realized that a Church Establishment af- 
fords no guarantee for soundness in doctrine and primitive 
simplicity of worship. In October, 1886, as Mr. Spurgeon 
was driving with a visitor whom he had kindly invited for 
the day, they both went into the Beckenham Parish Church, 
of which formerly Dr. Marsh was Rector, whose daughter 
wrote, " The Life of Captain Hedley Vicars," " Light on 
the Line," and many other charming religious books, and 
also did a vast deal of good work for the " navvies " on the 
railway lines. Under Dr. Marsh, the preaching was strongly 
evangelical and Low Church. But later, a new clergyman 
came, who has made the church and the service and the 
preaching Ritualistic in the extreme. There are two altars, 
which is contrary to the law, but is somehow winked at. 
There are no end of candles, small and large. There is a 
crucifix, and an "Agnus Dei," and banners to be carried 
about the church in processionals. We see what is liable 
to happen when the minister is appointed over the heads 
of the people by somebody else. The wishas of the people 
have no weight ; they have to sit under a service that is 



210 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

repugnant to them, but which gradually charms and trans- 
forms their children, till Ritualism is supreme. 

The main pillar of this church is the man who refused 
to sell Mr. Spurgeon land for a chapel, because the Dissent- 
ers are " heretics and schismatics," but who sees the Law 
of England broken every Sunday in his parish church by 
Ritualistic observances. 

Mr. Spurgeon saw also that the tendency of an Established 
Church was to induce among its clergy a disposition to 
tamper with their consciences. He was not contented to 
bear a silent testimony. We have before said that, on June 
5, 1864, when his powers had nearly reached their table 
land, he preached his notable sermon upon " Baptismal Re- 
generation," which was a trumpet call to all true men in The 
Establishment, who loved conscience more than place and 
preferment. We quote a paragraph as illustrating the po- 
sition of Mr. Spurgeon and the spirit of the discourse : ^ 

" Here is a church which teaches every Lord's Day in 
the Sunday-school, and should, according to the Rubric, 
teach openly in the church, all children that they were 
made members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of 
the kingdom of heaven, when they were baptized ! Here is 
a professedly Protestant Church, which, every time its min- 
ister goes to the font, declares that every person there re- 
ceiving baptism is there and then ' regenerated and grafted 
into the body of Christ's Church.' " 

The sermon called out sharp replies from several evan- 
gelical laymen and clergymen in the Church of England. 
The Earl of Shaftesbury, at the Church Pastoral Aid So- 
ciety, said : 

1 As many of our readers may desire to see the whole of this remarkable 
discourse, we present it in an Appendix. 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 211 

" I think that if what we have heard of had been addressed 
to me in my capacity of a layman, I should have taken no no- 
tice of it whatever ; or, I should merely have said to the ac- 
cuser, * Sir, I believe you are very ignorant ; to say the 
truth, you are a very saucy fellow; and if you think 
you represent the great and good Nonconformists of 
former days — the 'Howes, the Bunyans, the Flavels, and 
Wattses — or even that you have anything akin to the good, 
sound, and true religious Nonconformists of the present day, 
you are just as much mistaken as you would be if you 
thought you were well versed in history, or had even been 
initiated in the first elements of good breeding or Christian 
charity.' " 

And yet it might be doubted whether Mr. Spurgeon had 
spoken with any greater plainness than did Lord Shaftes- 
bury himself, two years later, when he wrote, July 23, 1866 : 

" On Sunday to St. Alban's Church in Holborn. In out- 
ward form and ritual, it is the worship of Jupiter and Juno. 
. . . Abundance of servitors, etc., in Roman apparel . . . 
then ensued such a scene of theatrical gymnastics, of sing- 
ing, of screaming, of genuflections, such a series of strange 
movements of the priests, their backs almost always to the 
people, as I never saw before, even in a Romish temple. 
An hour and three quarters were given up to the histrionic 
part. The communicants went up to the tune of soft music 
as though it had been a melodrama, and one was astonished 
at the close that there was no fall of the curtain. ... Is 
our blessed Lord obeyed in such observances and cer- 
emonials ? Do we thus lead souls to Christ or to Baal ? " 

Another champion, the Dean of Ripon, said : 

"As to that young minister who is now raving against the 
Evangelical clergy on this point, it is to be regretted that so 



212 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

much notice has been taken of his railings. He is to be 
pitied, because his entire want of acquaintance with theolog- 
ical literature leaves him utterly unfit for the determination 
of such a question, which is a question, not of mere doctrine, 
but of what may be called historical theology." 

It is a pity the Dean did not state just how much " ac- 
quaintance with theological literature " is needful to enable 
a person to decide whether it is right or wrong " for clergy- 
men to swear that they give their solemn assent and consent 
to what they do not believe," whether "in ecclesiastical 
matters, falsehood may express truth, and truth is mere un- 
important nonentity." 

In the same spirit, Mr. Spurgeon dealt with the form of 
absolution as pronounced in the Anglican churches : 

" Here is the absolution, and I humbly and heartily de- 
sire a ' Thus saith the Lord ' for it. ' Our Lord Jesus Christ 
who hath left power to his church to absolve allsinnei-s who 
truly repent and believe in him, of his great mercy forgive 
thee thine offences ; and hy his authority committed to me, I 
absolve thee from all thy sins, in the name of the Father, and 
of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: " 

Elsewhere in the discussion, Mr. Spurgeon spoke of " The 
Order for the Burial of the Dead " : 

" What a disgraceful farce is that which is transacted at 
the open grave, when a ' dear brother,' who has died drunk, 
is buried in a ' sure and certain hope of the resurrection to 
eternal life,' and with the prayer that ' when we shall depart 
this life, we may rest in him (Christ), as our hope is that 
this our brother doth.' • Here is a 'regenerate' brother 
who having defiled the village by constant uncleanness and 
bestial drunkenness, died without a sign of repentance, and 
yet the professed nainister of God solemnly accords him funeral 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 213 

rites which are denied to unbaptized innocents, and puts the 
reprobate into the earth * in sure and certain hope of the 
resurrection to eternal life.' " 

Do the words of Mr. Spurgeon seem severe? Let us 
excuse him; perhaps he has been reading the speech of 
Lord Ebury^ in the House of Lords, June 1, 1863, and he 
had in mind the reference which his lordship made to an 
actual case. In December, 1848, a notorious evil-liver was 
turned out of a tavern in Cambridge, at a late hour of 
night so intoxicated tjiat, falling into a ditch, he was 
suffocated. Mr. Dodd, the parish clergyman, while " acting 
throughout with great wisdom and propriety," declined to 
read over him the service which declared the deceased " our 
dear brother " who was " resting in Christ." He was cited 
before the Court of Arches, was fined the cost of the suit, and 
suspended for six months. 

No doubt also he learned from the same speech (if he was 
not aware of it before) that seventeen " distinguished resi- 
dents of the University of Cambridge " circulated a memo- 
rial to the " Right Reverend Bench of Bishops," which was 
later signed by three thousand eight hundred and fourteen 
clergymen, setting forth that " the almost indiscriminate use 
of ' The Order for the Burial of the Dead,' as practically 
enforced by the existing state of the law, imposes a heavy 



1 This most estimable nobleman, now in his ninety-first year, the oldest 
member of the House of Peers, has been throughout his long life the friend of 
missions and of evangelical religion. Both in his place as a member, first, of the 
House of Commons, and later, since 1857, as a member of the House of Lords, 
and as President of the Prayer Book Revision Society, he has labored untiringly 
to free the Anglican Riiual of all that is out of harmony with spiritual and 
scriptural Christianity. The volume just issued, " Lord Ebary as a Church 
Reformer" (by Hon. and Rev. E. W. Bligh. London, James Nisbet & Co.), is 
worthy the careful attention of every student of the present religious situation 
in England. 



214 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

burden upon the consciences of clergymen, and is the 
occasion of a grievous scandal to many Christian people." 

Of course, he had not read the speech of Lord Ebury, 
made July 23, 1865, in which his lordship moved that " in 
the opinion of this House, the evils arising from the com- 
pulsory and almost indiscriminate use of the Burial Service 
of the Church of England demand the early attention of 
the legislature ; " but he may have heard of a case cited by 
Lord Ebury as having occurred in Colyton, Devonshire. 
Mr. Gueritz, the Incumbent, as directed by law, read thirteen 
times a year the Athanasian Creed, which consigned to 
eternal perdition, among others, the Unitarians, " against 
whom he believed this creed to have been specially directed." 
After he had read this creed on Sunday, the sexton informed 
him of the death of one of his parishoners, a Unitarian. 
Having said that this man would " perish everlastingly," 
he was now required to say of the same man, before the 
same congregation, that he " committed the body of his 
dear brother " to the ground, " in the sure and certain hope 
of his resurrection to eternal life and happiness in the world 
to come." Rather than violate the dictates of conscience, 
he refused to read the Order of Burial ; he also was cited, 
admonished, and condemned to pay the cost of the suit. His 
lordship added, " All comment upon such a state of things 
is simply superfluous." 

Undoubtedly, Mr. Spurgeon had read in another speech 
of Lord Ebury in the House of Lords, the following : 

" What is it we complain of? We see a Church, whose 
confessors and martyrs suffered and bled to establish it in 
the utmost purity of doctrine and simplicity of ritual, 
gradually approaching in its doctrine and ritual to the 
Church of Rome. We have transubstantiation, in all but 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 215 

the name, auricular confession, penance, priestly absolution^ 
prayers for the dead, ornamental vestments, emblematic 
banners and processions, crucifixes, incense, candles lighted 
in broad daylight." 

Feeling for the sad estate of his evangelical brethren of 
the Church of England, Mr. Spurgeon no doubt desired to 
aid them to emancipate themselves. He was unwilling that 
he and his brethren of the Nonconformist churches should 
have a monopoly of self-sacrifice and fidelity to conviction. 

While there was no change in Mr. Spurgeon's views, yet, 
in later years, his personal relation to many of the members 
of the Anglican Church were very friendly. 

It is probable that the clergy of all shades learned to 
appreciate his true manliness and his spiritual force and the 
greatness of the work he was doing for England. And pos- 
sibly, some among them may have realized, with the passage 
of time, that his strong utterances Avere not unneeded. And 
he, on the other hand, as Dr. Weston has justly observed in a 
previous chapter, came to prize in the Ritualists their vivid 
realization of the supernatural, while as to the Low Church 
wing, he perhaps felt glad that they were inconsistently right 
rather than consistently wrong. 

But is not the present decadence of the evangelical wing 
of the Establishment the natural result of the long-continued 
profession and assertion by its clergy of doctrines from 
which their hearts and conscience revolt? 

It is not needful to remind the reader that Mr Spurgeon 
was a member of the great Baptist brotherhood, holding to 
its essential doctrines, to the baptism of believers, to the 
ordinances as Christ the Lord delivered them, to a spiritual 
arid regenerate church, to the Bible, and especially the New 
Testament, as the only rule of faith and practice, to absolute 



216 LIFE OF SrURGEO^. 

severance of Church from State, and to the lordship of 
Christ alone in his own church. 

Upon the subject of the Lord's Supper, the practice of Mr. 
Spurgeon and his church was far removed from what is 
ordinarily known as " open communion." A visitor who 
was certified as a member of an evangelical church received 
a ticket to the Lord's Table for three months, after which he 
was told, " You have now had an opportunity of observing 
our practice. We shall be glad to have you be baptized 
and unite with us ; otherwise, you had better go where you 
find fidler sympathy." Mr. Spurgeon said, in substance, to 
Dr. AYayland Hoyt and to other gentlemen, what he wrote 
to the " Baptist Weekly," March 26, 1884, "As compared 
with the bulk of English Baptists, I am a strict commun- 
ionist, as my church fellowship is strictly of the baptized." 

As to the relation of Mr. Spurgeon to the Baptist De- 
nomination in England, we are favored with the following 
communication from Kev. Charles Williams, the highly 
esteemed pastor of Accrington, in Lancashire, President of 
the Baptist Union, 1886-87, author of "Principles and 
Practices of the Baptists." 

" Mr. Spurgeon was much more than a Baptist. He be- 
longed to Christendom, like Carey, Livingstone, Brainerd 
and Judson, Wesley and Maclaren. These men, by common 
consent, are not the exclusive possession of any one denomi- 
nation, but, with Paul and Apollos and Cephas, are given 
to all who are Christ's; Nevertheless, each of them has had 
his name on a church roll, has been numbered with a par- 
ticular denomination. Though so much more than a Bap- 
tist, Mr. Spurgeon was a very decided, thorough and out- 
spoken Baptist. 



LIFE OF SPUR G EON. 217 

" Is there a Baptist denomination ? The Baptists of Great 
Britain are not an organic whole. They difFer from Wesleyan 
Methodists and Presbyterians in almost every particular as 
to government. The Baptist Union has no legislative or 
controling power. While the Conference can direct and 
restrain Wesleyans in their church life and activities, and 
the General Assembly is a court of last appeal to Presby- 
terians, the Baptist Union has no authority within a church 
or over its pastor. Each church is self-governing and inde- 
pendent of all human power outside itself Every church 
makes out its own trust deeds, and prescribes all the condi- 
tions upon which property shall be held for its use, and no 
County Association or National Union has voice or vote in 
the matter. In the election of a pastor, no confirmation of 
the choice by neighboring ministers is necessary. The 
church appoints ; and the appointment is regarded as equiva- 
lent to ordination, for it is all the ecclesiastical authority a 
minister gets to preach the gospel, to administer ordinances, 
to shepherd believers. Neighboring pastors may be asked 
to attend a recognition service, but no official sanction is requi- 
site to give validity to the action of the individual church. 

" Our Baptist Missionary Society is not governed by the 
denomination, but by its members (those who subscribe 
half a guinuea annually, and ministers who make an an- 
nual collection). These appoint the committee, and would 
resent any interference with their supremacy. The Baptist 
Union of Great Britain and Ireland is only a Society of 
certain Baptists, which has no constitutional right, any more 
than any other society of Baptists, to be considered the de- 
nomination or to speak in its name. It is this peculiarity 
of British Baptists which makes me ask, Is there a Baptist 
denomination ? 



218 LIFE OF SPUR G EON. 

" For many years our friend was as denominational as I 
am. It fell to my lot to be the first Secretary of the Fund 
for Augmenting the Incomes of the Pastors of our Poorer 
Churches, and of the Fund for Providing Annuities for Aged 
and Infirm Ministers and the Widows of Pastors. In both 
capacities I came into frequent and very friendly relations 
with Mr. Spurgeon. He was among the earliest and most 
liberal of my backers. From the first he subscribed to the 
Augmentation Fund, and often told me to ask for any ad- 
ditional help needed. In 1875, he was anxious to keep the 
Augmentation Fund a separate society, and to prevent its 
absorption by the Baptist Union. My colleague in those 
days was Rev. H. C. Leonard. In urging me to maintain 
the independence of our fund, Mr. Spurgeon wrote char- 
acteristically : * When I look at you and Leonard, I say, 
" There go the ships," but when I look at the Baptist Union 
I say, " There is that leviathan whom thou hast made to play 
therein." ' But he helped me to the last, with very large 
generosity. And so with the Annuity Fund. He gave 
five hundred pounds towards our Reserve Fund (fifty thou- 
sand pounds), and held a meeting of his friends on his lawn 
in Nightingale Lane in its behalf. ' 

" Some years later, I explored Cumberland for the Baptists, 
and discovered at Carlisle a half-starved Baptist minister 
who hailed from Spurgeon's Pastors' College. I wrote to 
our friend. He pleaded that the Lancashire Association 
should take up Carlisle. We gave fifty pounds a year and 
he another fifty pounds to Carlisle for some years. In re- 
turn I urged him to help us in Workington, where, in the face 
of many difiiculties, the Baptists were struggling into exist- 
ence. He responded, and for some time gave fifty pounds 
a year for Workington, which is also in Cumberland. 



LIFE OF spuroeon: 219 

" To the last, Mr. Spurgeon continued to subscribe and to 
preach for our Missionary Society. His College is denomi- 
national. Our colleges are, in this, following the lead of 
all other British Baptist institutions, separate and inde- 
pendent societies, and no more under the control of the Bap- 
tist Union, or any assembly, than your Rochester Seminary. 
Mr. Spurgeon trained ministers for the pastorate of Bap- 
tist churches. Certainly, until 1883, Mr. Spurgeon was as 
much one of the Baptist denomination as I. 

" Baptists are free, without prejudice to their right to mem- 
bership in what is termed the denomination, to decline or 
resign membership in the Baptist Union. Mr. Spurgeon, 
until 1883, was a constant friend of the Baptist Union. He 
was never a leader. I do not recollect seeing him at any 
meeting of the committee or council. But he attended its 
half-yearly sessions, especially in the autumn in the 
provinces. At Liverpool, in 1882, he was his own dear and 
glorious self, both in preaching and in talk. At Leicester, 
in 1883, a Unitarian was, with many Baptists, a guest of 
the Mayor at a public reception. This gave offence to Mr. 
Spurgeon. A discussion on * The Changes now Passing Over 
Religious Thought ' brought out clearly divergence on the 
part of some from what Mr. Spurgeon regarded as essentials 
of the Evangelical Faith. The result was that he never 
again attended a meeting of the Baptist Union. In 1886, 
when I was President, I hoped to secure a reunion of 
divided Baptists ; and hence my plea for Union at the 
spring meeting, to which Mr. Spurgeon responded favorably. 
In the autumn Mr. Spurgeon wrote me : 

" ' I greatly rejoice at everything about the meetings. I 
do not see how they could have been better. ... I con- 
gratulate you on your year of office. . . . Nothing has given 



220 LIFE OF ISPURGEON. 

me so mucli deliglit as the Bristol Session. In it I see every 
reason why I should have been there ; my absence had re- 
spect to former griefs for which I could not forbear by my 
absence to indicate that I had no fellow^ship in them.' 

" April 15, 1887, he wrote me, asking me to attend his 
Annual Conference : 

" ' You are, I suppose, the President of the Baptist Union 
until the following Monday. I invite you in that capacity : 
but I should have done so as Charles Williams without the 
office.' 

" And then Mr. Spurgeon declares that he * ministers to 
the good of all by being obliterated as to public speech,' 
' but by doing,' he adds, ' whatever I can in actual union 
with every good w^ork which the Union undertakes.' His 
precise attitude then to the Union is indicated in what fol- 
lows : ' I should be glad for you to speak [to his students] 
of the Union and its work, at the Conference, without any 
reference to me. I am glad that all the brethren should 
follow their denominational leaders as far as ever they can. 
They do not occupy the specially trying ground which I 
occupy, and, as they have not my scruples, I shall not at- 
tempt to inoculate them.' 

"This was in April, 1887. At the end of April out ' an- 
gelical doctor,' the sweetly reasonable and John-like Dr. 
Culross, became my successor in the Presidency of the 
Union. During his year of office, without any act of 
offense or provocation from the Union, subsequent to April, 
1886, the Down Grade Controversy raged, which ultimately 
led to Mr. Spurgeon's final and formal separation from the 
Baptist Union. I do not know what led to the change of 
attitude on Mr. Spurgeon's part from April, 1887, to Octo- 
ber, 1887. He did not in any way take me into his confi- 



LIFE OF SPUR G EON. 221 

dence during these eventful six months. The secret history 
of the Controversy will be known some day. I am sure of 
this, that, when it is, Mr. Spurgeon will not be dishonored. 
As to his motives and aims, no one doubts. He did his 
utmost to be both charitable and conscientious, and acted, 
doubtless, on information supplied to him. 

" Whatever record leap to light 
He never shall be shamed." 

As to the " Down Grade Controversy " and the with- 
drawal of Mr. Spurgeon from the Baptist Union, it becomes 
an American, separated by three thousand miles of ocean 
from England, to speak with a modest sense of fallibility, 
and with a recognition of the difficulty of putting himself 
in the place of all the good and great men whose names 
imparted dignity to the discussion. The impression grew 
upon Mr. Spurgeon that, among the members of the Union, 
were those who held and expressed erroneous and mislead- 
ing views upon vital doctrines of the gospel. These fears, 
mingled, however, with hopefulness, may be read between 
the lines in a letter dated February 25, 1886, after his 
return from Mentone : 

Thank God, there was no falling off of fiinds, as I feared. 
He was doubly gracious to me. I trust that we may all in 
the fiiture receive more from God and do more for God, and 
bring more glory to God. With the exception of our per- 
fect brethren, we have all plenty of room for growing better, 
and I reckon it a glaring imperfection in them that they are 
without that space for grace to work in. Let us, to use 
your own idiom, "go ahead," and may we especially be 
enabled to make headway against the growing scepticisms 
of our age. " Steadfast, immovable, always abounding in 
the work of the Lord," may we all be till the end come. 

It was mth pain and reluctance that he contemplated the 



222 LIFE OF SPURGE ON. 

possibility of being separated from his brethren. Septem- 
ber 27, 1886, after a full and confidential conversation with 
a visitor, he wrote : 

Please write and say nothing about me and the Baptist 
Union till I see you and explain at full. I am anxious to 
have nothing said which can trouble our friends and cause 
discord. A few heedless persons would be glad to see strife, 
but I can difter and not quarrel. 

Strenuous effort was made to remove his unfavorable im- 
pressions, but without success. In the August number of 
" The Sword and Trowel," 1887, he published the celebrated 
article " The Down Grade," the spirit of which is indicated 
in the following : 

The Atonement is scouted, the Inspiration of Scripture 
is derided, the Holy Ghost is degraded into an influence, 
the Punishment of Sin is turned into fiction, and the Resur- 
rection into a myth. And yet these enemies of our faith 
expect us to call them brethren and maintain a confederacy 
with them. 

This article was followed in September, by " Our Reply 
to Sundry Critics and Inquirers," and, in October, by " The 
Case Proved," and, in November, by "A Fragment upon 
the Down Grade Controversy." 

Meanwhile, in 1887, Mr. Spurgeon had formally with- 
drawn from the Union. Upon the announcement of this 
withdrawal, a committee of the Union was appointed, con- 
sisting of John Aldis, D. D., President Joseph Angus, D. D., 
and Alexander Maclaren, D. D., who say : 

We have learned with extreme regret that our dear friend 
and fellow laborer. Rev. C. H. Spurgeon, has withdrawn 
from membership in the Baptist Union. We heartily agree 
with Mr. Spurgeon in regarding disloyalty to Christ and his 
gospel as inconsistent with membership in the Baptist Union. 
. . . While we difier from Mr. Spurgeon in the step he has 



LIFE OF SFURGEON. 223 

taken, we are at one with him in loyalty to Christ, in love 
for the gospel, and in earnest longing of heart that it may 
be preached in simplicity, uncorruptuess, fullness, and power, 
in all the pulpits of the land, with the Holy Ghost sent 
down from heaven. And Ave rejoice that, though he has 
withdrawn from the Union, we shall continue to enjoy fel- 
lowship and engage in service with him as members of the 
same denomination. 

The period of this controversy was a time of intense dis- 
tress to Mr. Spurgeon. May 22, 1888, he wrote : 

The Lord knoweth the way that I take, and to his divine 
arbitration, I leave the matter. ... I have borne my protest 
and suffered the loss of friendships and reputation, and the 
infliction of pecuniary withdrawments and bitter reproach ; 
I can do no more. My way is henceforth far removed from 
their way. But the pain it has cost me none can measure. 
I can never compromise the truth of God. ... It is not a 
matter of personalities, but of principles. And Avhere two 
sets of men are diametrically opposite in their opinions upon 
vital points, no form of words can make them one. 

June 18, 1888, he writes: 

I am so glad to forget all this when writing to you. I 
send hearty thanks to Mrs. A. (an American lady who had 
just sent him twenty pounds for his various enterprises). I 
am cheered when I needed cheering. See how I have been 
in storms : 

1. These Union troubles. 

2. Then wife very ill these seven weeks, and ill still. 

3. Next, my dear mother died. 

4. On the day of the funeral I was smitten by my old 
enemy very fiercely, and have undergone a baptism of pain. 
Cannot walk yet, and barely stand. Still I rejoice in God. 
Lots of Americans here ; choice specimens. Hearty love. 

"The Sword and Trowel" for August, 1891, contained 
" The Down Grade and Up Grade ; or, the Power of Truth," 
in which Mr. Spurgeon showed by example cited from 
recent religious history what vitality and what power of con- 



224 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

quest there is in the truth when proclaimed. In all his ad- 
dresses to the Pastors' College Conference, up to the very 
last, upon " The Greatest Fight in the World," he urged 
his students, with the most impassioned eloquence, to con- 
tend earnestly for the faith. Apprehending that the mem- 
bers of the old Pastors' College Conference were not entirely 
exempt from the dreaded errors, he dissolved that body, 
and formed a ncAV Conference upon a basis intensely and 
unmistakably evangelical. 

There is not the least reason to suppose that Mr. 
Spurgeon ever in the least changed his views, or regretted 
the position he had taken. 

There can be no doubt of the thorough sincerity, the ab- 
solute conviction, and the complete unselfishness of Mr. 
Spurgeon. He sacrificed his own feelings, his friendships, 
to his sense of duty, as he had done in 1886, when he sep- 
arated himself from Mr. Gladstone, an honored personal 
friend, because he believed that "Home Kule" was fraught 
with calamity to the Empire and to Protestantism.' No 
doubt he was aware also that he imperilled, humanly speak- 
ing, the income of the enterprises under his charge. He 
had every reason for keeping silence, if conscience would 
permit silence. 

It has been intimated that Mr. Spurgeon's action was the 
result of his impaired health and his consequent depression 
of spirits, and of his tendency to a morbid pessimism. In 
this opinion, the author cannot at all agree. In the fall of 
1886, Mr. Spurgeon was cheerful, bright, often witty, 
kindly in his judgments of men, however earnestly he 
might protest against errors in doctrine. It was the " Down 
Grade " which affected his health, rather than his health 
which precipitated the " Down Grade," 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 225 

At the same time we must recognize the fact that men of 
a strong character, of leadership, of marked ability and in- 
tense conviction, are prone to have small tolerance for those 
who. differ from them, and also that it is the misfortune of 
great and eminent men, as they advance in life, more and 
more to be surrounded by those who look upon them with 
a modified idolatry, and who no longer question or discuss, 
but only echo and reflect. 

Of the unscriptural and dangerous character of the errors 
against which Mr. Spurgeon protested, there can be no 
doubt. How far they had pervaded the Union, whether 
the Union could be better reformed from within or from 
without, these were questions on which good and wise men 
might differ in judgment. And it is surely possible to 
recognize in the fullest degree the love of truth and the 
self-sacrificing heroism which actuated Mr. Spurgeon, with- 
out casting the shadow of a reproach upon Dr. Angus, Dr. 
Maclaren, and Dr. Landels. 

Mr. Spurgeon never left the denomination. The Baptist 
Union is not the denomination, but a voluntary society, like 
our own Missionary Union. Mr. Spurgeon and the Taber- 
nacle Church left the London Baptist Association, but at 
once joined the Surrey and Middlesex Baptist Association. 



CHAPTER XV. 

MR. SPUEGEON AT HOME. 

"VTEVER would Mr. Spurgeon have gone through his 
-i-^ unparalleled labors, if he had not found rest and 
reinforcement in his home, and in the society of a brave, 
noble, loving woman, 

Early in his ministry, one of the deacons, seeing that Mr. 
Spurgeon was giving away all and laying up nothing, per- 
suaded him to buy a house with pleasant grounds in Night- 
ingale Lane, Clapham, which, at that time, was a quiet and 
not crowded suburb. Here Mr. and Mrs. Spurgeon passed 
twenty-three happy years. But the city grew up over what 
had been an open space. It became absolutely necessary 
for his health that he should have the quiet and the pure 
air of the country. The same causes which had made 
Nightingale Lane less desirable for a residence had in- 
creased the commercial value of the property. This increase, 
with the wise economy of his wife, enabled Mr. Spurgeon 
to purchase the estate at Westwood, just a mile from the 
Sydenham Station, to which he gave the name of Beulah. 
It was then, in 1880, much less valuable than now. 

In August, 1880, Mrs. Spurgeon wrote, of the removal 
from the old home, " Every nook and corner, both in house 
and garden, abounds with sweet or sorrowful memories. . . . 
Though both husband and wife have been caused to suffer 
severe pain and months of weakness, our house has been far 
oftener to us a Bethel than a Bochim." On the walls of 
226 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 



227 



the study in the old home, by the request of the incoming 
tenants, was placed the following, written by Mr. Spurgeon : 

" Farewell, fair room, I leave thee to a friend : 
Peace dwell with him and all his kin. 
May angels evermore the house defend. 
Their Lord hath often been within." 

" On our first view of the new home," Mrs. Spurgeon 
writes, " we were reminded of Bunyan's description of the 




Entrance to Westwood. 

Delectable Mountains, 'A pleasant prospect on every side. 
These mountains are Immanuel's land; they are within 
sight of his city ; the sheep also are his, and he laid down 
his life for them.' " 

Beulah Hill is, about seven miles south from London. 
One may see the dome of St. Paul's, and, on rare occasions, 
the towers of Windsor. The air is pure and sweet, and 
now and then the sun (if that name may be applied to the 



228 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

aerial phenomenon sometimes witnessed in England) lies 
warm and soft upon the grassy slope. A friend gave to Mr. 
Spurgeon a waterproof mattress on which he would some- 
times lie upon the sward and would try to fancy that it was 
Southern France. The complete repose, the pure atmos- 
phere, added greatly, not only to Mr. Spurgeon's comfort 
and happiness, but to his power of labor and to the dura- 
tion of his life. 

" The Pall Mall Gazette," June 19, 1884, says : 

" The borders of the kitchen garden are all aglow with 
pinks and other homely English flowers, the beds of which 
yield every week a heavy crop for the slums of Southwark. 
The flower mission in connection with the Tabernacle — 
there is almost everything in connection with the Tabernacle 
except a theatre and a public house — sends its gleaners 
regularly to Westwood, and their baskets of flowers gladden 
many a home in the dark and dreary alleys of London. 
Rustic arbors and convenient seats offer pleasant resting- 
places. 

" Passing the lattice-door, recalling the Wicket-gate, the 
visitor finds himself in a small entrance hall, from which 
the dining-room opens to the right,' and Mr. Spurgeon's 
study to the left ; while between the two lie Mrs. Spurgeon's 
Book-Fund room, Mrs. Spurgeon's own room, and Mr. Spur- 
geon's library. Mrs. Spurgeon's room, whence she directs 
the distribution of the books provided by the Book-Fund, 
adjoins the small room where innumerable volumes accumu- 
late, until the fortnightly wagon arrives from the Globe 
Parcel Express, and carries them off* from Westwood to all 
parts of the world. 

"Mr. Spurgeon received me in his study, just as he came 
in from the garden, upon which the study windows open 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 229 

directly. From the windows, the eye wandei-s over the 
kitchen garden, murmurous with bees, to Thornton-heath, 
with Croydon in the distance. In his study Mr. Spurgeon 
keeps two private secretaries constantly going. He has two 
more at the Tabernacle, one or two at the College, and 
others elsewhere. One of them at Westwood is a shorthand 
writer, and, together with his colleague, he is kept busy till 
six. All moneys for the College, Orphanage, etc., are sent 
direct to Mr. Spurgeon, who is the paymaster-general. 

" ' It is my constant labor,' said Mr. Spurgeon, ' to thrust 
off some portion of my work on other shoulders, but it all 
comes back upon me. The more I do, the more there is 
to do. 

" The study is a work-a-day room, the walls lined with 
books, and the spacious table in the centre bearing abundant 
traces of work and wear. Mr. Spurgeon, in a white felt 
wide-awake and a light alpaca garden coat, talked pleas- 
antly. A genial, hearty man, full of shrewdness and 
humor, whose character has broadened and deepened as he 
has made his way through life ; and who, having lived 
down the calumnies with which he was almost overwhelmed 
at fii-st, now marvels most of all at the all-encompassing 
atmosphere of reverence and love in which he spends his 
life. Mr Spurgeon has mellowed much with time. 

" His library is a spacious room, surrounded with books 
from floor to ceiling, in the best condition and in excellent 
order. The most interesting corner is that in which are his 
own works in various languages — his collection of pamph- 
lets, his scrap-books, and last, but by no means least, his 
most amusing collection of all the portraits and caricatures 
cf himself which have been published since he began his 
ministry. The Spurgeon pamphlets form several volumes. 



230 LIFE OF SPUEGFON. 

At first, they are chiefly abusive, but as time advanced, this 
abuse died away, and eulogy, at the end, becomes almost as 
monotonous as vituperation. 

" Among the treasures, is a relic of Dr. Livingstone. It 
was one of ' Spurgeon's Sermons,' which the great explorer 
carried through Africa till his death. It bears the inscrip- 
tion in Livingstone's handwriting — ' Very good — D. L.' " 

Into their home came, in the providence of God, joys and 
sorrows which elevate and purify. October 2, 1879, Mrs. 
Spurgeon writes : 

" Committed to the faithful keeping of his father's God, 
our precious son [Thomas], sails to-day for his second visit 
to Australia. The cold and damp of our English winter 
made us fear for his somewhat delicate constitution. . . . 
Give the winds and the waves charge concerning him, O 
Lord." 

In 1884, the son returned, though a few weeks too late 
for the Jubilee. Thursday evening, July 10th, Mrs. Spur- 
geon writes : 

"About ten this evening, my darling son was in my arms. 
The pain of five years' absence was almost annihilated. 
Sixteen thousand miles to come home to see father and 
mother ! Many prayers were ascending to heaven from both 
sides of the world that a safe and prosperous voyage might 
be vouchsafed to the beloved traveler." 

And the son records a special instance in which these 
petitions were answered. At Adelaide, the good ship Iberia 
lay from Sunday morning till Monday noon, and Mr. 
Thomas Spurgeon was enabled to spend the Lord's Day 
with the Lord's people. On Monday, owing to misinforma- 
tion, he reached the pier too late for the last steam launch 
for the great steamer. Soon they saw her anchor weighed. 




Westvvood. 



Page 233, 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 233 

aud she was off. Meanwhile, a friend had gone to the 
Semaphore and had signaled the ship : 

" For every sake, stop ! A son of the best parents in all 
the world wants to get home to them, and cannot wait an 
extra fortnight ! " 

The son had charted a steam launch and was in pursuit 
of the Iberia, which all the time Avas growing smaller and 
smaller. The skipper of the launch told them that it w^as a 
mail steamer ; that a little before she had refused to stop for 
fifteen passengers ; and that she Avould not stop for the 
Governor himself. But, suddenly, " She's heading round ! " 
Her stern gave place to her bow, and she bore down upon 
the launch. Soon he was on board and headed for London. 
The fourth officer had seen the signal, though it was not 
customary to look out for signals when quitting port. 

" The Lord had put his hand on the steering gear of the 
captain's heart, and made him give the signal, 'Hard a 
port.' " 

Just far enough from London to be out of the way of 
idlers, just near enough to be reached by those who loved 
Mr. Spurgeon or had an errand with him, Westwood or 
Beulah received into its gates many of the Lord's people, 
sometimes dignitaries, sometimes students from the college, 
sometimes very humble laborers in the Lord's field. One 
of his evangelists says : 

"How he delighted to gather about him there a little 
band of brethren, and after the evening meal propose a few 
* tales of mercy ' ! With what interest he would listen to 
each in turn, and the starting tear would soon tell how his 
tender trusting heart was touched. What ' tales of mercy ' 
he could tell ! Can we ever forget them ? How they come 
crowding the memory." 



234 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

At another time, lie would take his visitors to the pond 
and show them the swans, which followed him around as he 
walked on the bank ; or he would show them the stable, 
saying, " You might eat your dinner off the floor ; every- 
thing is so clean." The straw in the stalls was braided just 
behind the horses, so that it might almost be said the stalls 
were carpeted. Over the stalls were the names of the two 
ponies, " Brownie " and " Beauty." " My horses," he said, 
" are under the law ; they observe Saturday. I never had 
them out on that day, whatever may happen." But on 
Sunday they carried him to the Tabernacle. 

Nature rested and relaxed him ; he was sportive and full 
of cheer ; but his humor always had a meaning. 

"Are you troubled in your country with these sinless 
people ? " he said to an American visitor. " I had two of 
them at work for me. But at last I said to them, ' You 
come late in the morning ; you go away early in the after- 
noon. And in the time between you spoil my shrubs.' So 
I got rid of them ; and now I have two sinners at work, and 
everything is in good order." 

We quote again from the visitor, whose letters we have 
already used : 

" After seeing the Orphanage thoroughly, we drove over 
Clapham Common, covered with gorse, and through Surrey 
to Beulah Hill. Mr. Spurgeon showed the guests his fernery, 
in which he takes much delight, his garden and farm, his 
cows and other stock. There are ten cows. This department 
is under the care of Mrs. Spurgeon, who from the profit of 
the cows supports a colporteur in the neighborhood. 

" Then we walked, or sat on a rural bench, or under the 
arbor, and talked. It was indescribably delightful to hear 
from him and Mrs. Spurgeon reminiscences of the early days. 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 237 

"I had not thought of staying beyond the afternoon ; but 
Mr. Spurgeon said : * You are not here very often ; now, 
stay to tea.' I was willingly persuaded; we had pears, 
peaches, plums, and honey, all from his own garden. After 
tea, the family, with the servants, were called together for 
family prayei^s. I would not have missed this for anything. 
He read the part of the twenty-third chapter of Luke, which 
tells of the young ruler who came to the Lord. As he read, 
he commented with his wonted freshness, and now and then 
quaintness. This was, throughout, a sweet, lovely service. 

" Then we had further talk. He showed me a little volume, 
' Norcott on Baptism,' to which he wrote an introduction ; 
it has been translated into Turkish and Armenian and Bul- 
garian ; and as a result Baptists are springing up in those 
regions. 

" Mrs. Spurgeon also kindly allowed me to see her work- 
shop, where she does all the correspondence about the Book 
Fund, and also the little store-room where the books are 
kept, and where the parcels are done up. 

" As I was coming away, Mr. Spurgeon directed my atten- 
tion to a few of the pictures in the hall, representing scenes 
in the Reformation. He has four or five hundred of them. 
He delights in all that illustrates and honors these heroes — 
Calvin, Beza, Luther, and the rest of the Lord's chosen men 
at arms. He sometimes lends the collection to churches as 
an aid in raising money. 

" Everything must have an end. The * Spurgeon Day ' 
was at its close. I left the land of Beulah and returned to 
the great city, thanking God for the blessing granted to the 
world through these his servants, and asking for them every 
blessing, earthly and heavenly." 

Later Mr. Spurgeon kindly expressed a desire to see me 



238 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

again before he went to Mentone and I to America. So I 
gladly went Wednesday, November 3, to Beulali Hill. 
We drove first by the large common of the town of Croy- 
don. All along there were delightful bits of wood; the 
brackens (or ferns) had withered; the forest leaves were 
fading. This suggested to Mr. Spurgeon the remark that the 
words of Scriptures, " we all do fade as a leaf" (Isaiah 64 : 6) 
do not refer to the decay of life (as is implied by the use or- 
dinary made of the words), but to the decay of our supposed 
righteousness and morality. "We all do fade as a leaf ; 
and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." We 
think that we are righteous, but presently, under the pres- 
sure of temptation, our moral strength fades and we are 
swept before the current of passion. 

Beyond Croydon is the Palace of the Archbishop of Can- 
terbury. Mr. Spurgeon receives each year a card permit- 
ting him to ride through the grounds. When he last wrote 
asking for the renewal of the card, he enclosed a return en- 
velope addressed simply " C. H. Spurgeon." But another 
envelope was returned, addressed " Rev. C. H. Spurgeon," 
and the card made out in the same form. This little inci- 
dent is to be noted, especially in "connection with the fact 
that "Lodge's Peerage and Baronetage," in the chapter 
upon " titles," says that Dissenting Ministers are not clergy- 
men, and are not entitled to be addressed as " Rev.," but 

should be addressed " Mr. A. B., minister of the 

Dissenting Chapel." I am glad that the Primate of all 
England rises above this foolish and offensive nonsense. 

As a further illustration of the courtesy of his neighbors, 
when Mr. Spurgeon was very ill, one of the first to call was 
Dr. Thorold, then Lord Bishop of Rochester (in whose 
diocese Upper Norwood and Croydon are situated). He 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 239 

said : " I would like to see Brother Spurgeon, if he will see 
me; and I would like to pray with him." As soon as 
Mr. Spurgeon was able to be out, the Bishop invited him to 
his home for a day. Other visitors were denied, and they 
walked in the grounds and talked and prayed together. 

Presently, the weather, which had been undecided and 
wavering and feminine, really made up its mind ; and rain 
began to come down, and we made the best of our way 
home. We were a little late to dinner, but Mrs. Spurgeon 
(a born angel) did not reprove John Ploughman ; and he, on 
his part, expressed with touching humility his gratitude to 
the gude-wife for waiting dinner till he came. 

He makes little jests about his abstinence from meat. 
He once said to some friends at his table : . . . 
" I will give you ten pounds if you will prove to me 
that that grouse is a vegetable, for then I can eat it." 

Of course, everybody knows Mr. Spurgeon as the great 
preacher, as the great power for evangelical religion in 
England, but not everybody knows that he is the most de- 
lightful of friends and the most genial of companions. 

On the following Sunday morning I attended service at 
the Tabernacle and remained to the Lord's Supper. Then, 
as I took him by the hand for good-bye, he said, in his 
kind, cheerful way : 

" If you will come over here and start a paper we will all 
take it." 

And that was the last to me. 

Beulah was not alone the home of Mr. Spurgeon. It was 
the centre of that wonderful agency, born in^the heart of a 
suffering woman — the Book Fund. In 1874, after reading 
the first volume of jNIr. Spurgeon's " Lectures to My Stu- 
dents," Mrs. Spurgeon exclaimed : 



240 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

" I wish I could place it in the hands of every minister 
in England." 

Thereto " John Ploughman," with his wonted homely di- 
rectness, said: 

" Then, why not do it? How much will you give? " 

His words set her to thinking how much she could spare 
from housekeeping or personal matters. As the result, she 
produced exactly enough to pay for a hundred copies of the 
book; and, in her own words, " The Book Fund was in- 
augurated." The hundred copies were eagerly received 
and applications for other copies came pouring in. And 
there came, from generous hands, gifts in money soon amount- 
ing to one hundred and eighty-two pounds. 

In August, 1876, Mrs. Spurgeon, in "A Letter to Her 
Friends," published in " The Sword and Trowel," told the 
story of the first year of the Book Fund. Three thousand and 
fifty-eight books had been distributed to ministers whose sal- 
aries were seventy pounds, sixty pounds, or even less than 
fifty pounds. The Book Fund, springing thus, without 
human forethought, into existence, was the product of 
divine wisdom and of God's thought for his servants. If 
money is given to a minister, there are a hundred calls for 
every penny, and soon all is gone ; and, beyond a present 
lessening of hardship, all is as before. The man's earning 
capacity is no greater ; his mind is starved without books ; 
what can he do but starve his people, and they, in turn, 
starve him ? But the gift of books, timely, suggestive, ap- 
propriate, furnishing him with new material, helps him to 
think. All this makes him a new man. The people rub 
their eyes and say, " What has come over the minister ? " 
and presently they feel that his stipend must be raised. 
He feeds them, and they, in turn, feed him. 




Mrs. Si'URCiEON. 



Page 240. 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 243 

A missionary from Jamaica wrote : " It is a joy to bear 
one of the brethren say, * De lady ob de great Massa Spurgem 
gib me dis book tro' de Siety ! ' " 

A newly ordained curate of the Church of England, who 
had received " Lectures to my Students," said, " How Mr. 
Spurgeon does show up our bad habits ! " 

The Lord constantly opened new doors, sent new calls, 
and provided the means for meeting them. A " pastor, wath 
his sickly wife, and three mites of children," must go to 
Australia, as the only chance for the father's life. But how 
could he get there? Sixteen pounds ^vas lacking, after 
every resource had been taxed. Just then, John Plowman 
received a personal gift of fifteen pounds from an unknown 
friend, and the voyage could be made. 

The Earl of Shaftesbury asked, when on a visit to Mr. 
and Mrs. Spurgeon, "How does the Baptist book-giving 
prosper ? " Mrs. Spurgeon was able to tell him that of four 
hundred ministers who had received books within the past 
four months, just one-fourth were of her "own people." 

A Vicar writes : " Last night I read nearly all of the first 
volume of 'Lectures to Students' with immense delight 
and satisfaction." 

During the year 1880, seven thousand one hundred and 
forty-four volumes were given away, and six thousand two 
hundred and sixty-two sermons. February, 1881, Mrs. 
Spurgeon wrote : " There is quite a run of applications upon 
the Book Fund from clergymen of the Established Church." 
A curate said: "After opening your parcel, I could not 
help kneeling down and thanking God, who is the giver of 
every good and perfect gift." 

" A new source of pleasure in my work is the application 
of many High Church clergymen for gifts of Mr. Spurgeon's 



244 ^^^^ ^^ SPURGEON. 

works." One wrote: "I am an ordained priest of the 
Church of England. I am engaged at a stipend of thirty- 
pounds per annum in two villages. On the second Sunday 
in Lent I was needing a text, when I suddenly remembered 
Mr. Spurgeon's sermon on 'The Three Thens' (Isaiah 
6 : 1-8), and I gave it * as a morning's discourse. The 
majority of the people were so pleased that, during the nine 
Sundays I was there, the church was full every afternoon. 
Might I respectfully beg the favor of a few of the earlier 
volumes of Mr. Spurgeon's sermons?" 

A missionary from the West Indies said : ' The sermons 
have been a treasure to me for fifteen years. Many a one 
have I put through my own little mill, and then given it to 
the people, and when they have said, ' Oh, massa, it be one 
berry good sarmont,' I have thought to myself, ' Yes, it 
ought to he, and I don't wonder you like it ! ' " 

In 1881, seven thousand two hundred and ninety-eight 
volumes were given. 

Along with the books, Mrs. Spurgeon often sent packages 
of stationery. A minister who had received a package 
wrote : " Surely I thought, this is from one who understands 
a preacher's needs; for I have to' write very frequently on 
the backs of old circulars and cut open all addressed envel- 
opes, in order to save spending the money, of which I have 
so little." 

Another writes : " I found your splendid gift of books 
awaiting me; and, though weary in body and mentally 
depressed, the sight of them was so refreshing that, as I 
turned over the treasures, one by one, though it was past 
midnight, I felt as if I could sing aloud for joy. I went on 
my knees and thanked God for his great goodness to me 
through you." 



LIFE OF SPURGEOX. 245 

A minister, who had received " The Treasury of David," 
wrote : " I had heard of the books by the hearing of the ear, 
but never did I think I should possess them as a free gift. 
O Lord, I thank thee ! Thou hast crowned me with loving 
kindness and tender mercies. A beggar knocks at the door 
and receives a slice of dry bread ; this is kindness. But 
little Johnny gets a slice with butter on it ; ah, my soul, 
this is loving kindness, hread with hutter^ 

In 1884, Mrs. Spurgeon wrote that over twelve thousand 
ministers had received grants from the Book Fund. The 
benefits of the fund were not limited to England ; but min- 
isters in China, Palestine, Norway, Trinidad, Hayti, Africa, 
in every land, were blessed. 

And so the Book Fund went on, cheering, blessing, en- 
lightening, strengthening. Thus the gracious lady, who 
was iis inspiration and author, passing through the valley 
of weeping, made it a place of springs. 

During its first fifteen years, the Book Fund distributed 
one hundred and twenty-two thousand one hundred and 
twenty-nine volumes, besides sermons innumerable. And, 
all this God wrought through one who was an invalid, 
seldom passing a day without pain. 

In " The Sword and Trowel " for April, 1892, under title 
of "An Interrupted Service," Mrs. Spurgeon writes as to 
her plan for the future of her Book Fund : 

"A pleasant life-work laid aside, that the sweet, sad min- 
istry of love to my precious husband might be constantly 
and tenderly fulfilled ; first, by his bed of terrible sickness, 
in the spring and summer-time ; then, with expectant joy, 
by his side in the bright three months at Mentone : and 
after that, till the close of that memorable January 81, 
1892, when his Saviour could no longer spare him to us, 



246 ^^^^ ^F SPURGEON. 

but * willed ' that he should be with him where he is, that 
he might ' behold his glory.' Such is the brief, sorrowful 
record of the Book Fund for the past twelve months. 

"A month's seclusion in one of the fairest of earth's 
Paradises has somewhat soothed the surgings of sorrow in 
my soul, and strengthened me physically for renewed ser- 
vice. * I waited patiently for the Lord ; and he inchned 
unto me, and heard my cry.' So now it seems to me that 
the time has come to resume my work ; and I believe God 
will help me to fulfill my earnest desire to do his will in all 
things, and serve him faithfully, even unto death. As long 
as I have life, the Book Fund must be my life-work ; and 
I expect to be able to increase its usefulness, and scatter its 
blessings more widely, if health be granted me. 

" By the time this * note ' is published, I shall be ready 
(d. v.) to receive donations from all dear friends willing to 
help in this important service, and also applications for 
books from ministers who are unable to purchase them for 
themselves. 

"S. Spuegeon. 

« * Westwood,' Beulah Hill, Upper Norwood." 



CHAPTER XVI. 

THE BURDEN OF LIFE. 

ON February 25, 1886, Mr. Spurgeon wrote, " I am well, 
but this gigantic work must crush me sooneii or later 
— sooner, if the wind continues in the east much longer." 
But the burden of the gigantic work was bravely borne for 
years to come ; indeed, how could it be laid aside Avith the 
Tabernacle and the College and the Orphans and the wit- 
nessing for the truth, and all the forms of work resting upon 
him? 

He had always been greatly recruited by three months in 
each year spent at Mentone, in the South of France, on the 
shore of the Mediterranean. Here he was secluded from 
interruptions ; he could bathe all day in the sun ; he could 
watch the ever changing blue Mediterranean. He could 
read the sacred word, could saturate his mind with its spirit, 
could write for "The Sword and Trowel," could -revise his 
sermons, could gather a few friends to his rooms for daily 
prayer and reading of the Scripture, and for the familiar 
commenting in which he delighted, and could have a more 
formal service on Sunday. Many visitors, drawn, like him- 
self, to Mentone in quest of health, will always bless God 
for the high privilege of forming one of the little company 
who united with him in worship, in the opening of the word 
of God, and in the breaking of bread. 

During the earlier months of the year 1891, Mr. Spurgeon 
had a severe attack of the prevalent influenza, combined with 

247 



248 LIFE OF SPUBGEON. 

the hereditary rheumatic gout and with congestion of the 
kidneys, which greatly prostrated him. When somewhat 
recovered, toward the close of May, he made a little visit to 
Stambourne, one of the homes of his boyhood, where he 
passed a few very happy days in the society of the venera- 
ble Mr. Beddow (a descendent of one of his grandfather's 
predecessors), and of Rev. J. C. Houchin, the present pastor 
at Stambourne. The accompanying cut of Mr. Spurgeon 
and Mr. Houchin tells how marked was Mr. Spurgeon's ex- 
haustion, though its face shows its wonted kindliness and 
something of its force of will. But after a few days, 
another attack compelled him to hasten to his home, where, 
for three months, he suffered intensely, and was at times in 
hourly expectation of death. During these months, the 
most tender and affectionate solicitude was felt all over 
Christendom, and daily bulletins of his health were pub- 
lished in the papers. Constant prayer was offered, not only 
by the members of the Tabernacle, but by Christians all 
over the world. These expressions of sympathy were not 
limited by race or creed or station. In many instances the 
members and the clergy of the Establishment offered prayer 
in his behalf; one of the most tender expressions of sympa- 
thy came from a leading Jewish Rabbi. 

Mr. Gladstone, sorrowing under the death of his son, 
wrote to Mrs. Spurgeon a letter, which, with Mrs. Spurgeon's 
reply, and Mr. Spurgeon's postscript, by his own hand, we 
give below, a memorable interchange of expressions of sym- 
pathy between the two greatest Englishmen of our time : 

My Dear Madam : In my own home, darkened at the 
present time, I have read with intense interest daily accounts 
of Mr. Spurgeon's illness ; and I cannot help conveying to 
you the earnest assurance of my sympathy with you, and 
with him, and of my cordial admiration, not only of his 




Mr. Spurgeon and Mr. Houchin. 



Pa,re 248. 



LIFE OF SPURGEOX. 251 

splendid powers, but still more of his devoted and unfailing 
character. May I humbly commend you and him, in all 
contingencies, to the infinite stores of the divine love and 
mercy, and subscribe myself, my dear Madam, faithfully 
youi-s, 

W. E. Gladstone. 

West WOOD, Upper Norw^ood, 18 July, 1891. 
Dear Mr. Gladstone : Your words of sympathy have a 
special significance and tenderness, coming from one who 
has just passed through the deep waters which seem now to 
threaten me. I thank you warmly for your expressions of 
regard for my beloved husband, and with all my heart I 
pray that the consolations of God may abound toward you, 
even as they do to me. Although we cannot yet consider 
the dear patient out of danger, the doctors have to-day is- 
sued a more hopeful bulletin. I feel it is an honor to be 
allowed to say that I shall ever be, 

Your grateful friend, 

S. Spurgeon. 

P. S. — Yours is a word of love, such as those only write 
who have been into the King's country, and seen much of 
His face. My heart's love to you. 

C. H. Spurgeon. 

The loving kindness of God to his servant was very 
marked in one particular. Mrs. Spurgeon had for many 
years been almost wholly confined to the house. Her hus- 
band said to the writer of these lines : 

" If she were to di'ive for a mile, she would not get over 
it in weeks." 

In consequence of this, for many years she was unable 
to accompany her husband in his annual trips to Mentone 
for his much needed rest and change of climate. During 
all these years the evident necessity for these vacations 
was pointing to the end which was drawing ever nearer. 

But as Mr. Spurgeon's strength so far rallied as to ena- 
ble him to go to Mentone again, Mrs. Spurgeon was 



252 I^IFE OF SPURGEON. 

strengthened by God, and able, for the first time, to accom- 
pany him on his journey. This was a great joy to both of 
them. In a letter written on Sunday, February 7, 1892, 
Mrs. Spurgeon said : 

" I want to tell you how perfectly happy my beloved 
was during the three delightful months of his residence 
here." And she recalled " his joy in bringing me to the 
place he loved so well, and showing me eagerly all the 
beautiful scenery in which he so delighted." 

It is not easy to conceive what a sadly anxious season it 
would have been for both, if this year also, when he was 
directed to betake himself for the winter to far away Men- 
tone, he must leave her weak, lonely, and full of deep 
anxiety at Westwood. It was an unspeakable blessing 
that she could go with him and see him day by day " per- 
fectly happy," and that she can always look back with grati- 
tude to God, who graciously granted those " three delightful 
months, "at the close of a life abounding in toils and trials. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

THE YEARNINGS OF THE ABSENT PASTOR. 

MR. SPURGEON in the autumn of 1891 spent some 
time at Eastbourne in Sussex, not far from Beachy 
Head. He returned to his home October 16. The report 
of his return stated : " The journey had no ill effect upon 
him, and the change seems to have done him good. Just 
now his health is somewhat improved." The next Lord's 
Day the following letter, written by himself, Avas read to 
the anxious congregations at the Tabernacle at the morn- 
ing and the evening services : 

" To my beloved flock at the Metropolitan Tabernacle — 
Dear Friends : Since you all prayed for me so importun- 
ately, I would entreat you to praise with me most heartily. 
My stay by the sea has wrought wonders. I feel a differ- 
ent man altogether, and my doctor gives me hope that 
when I have received a solid upbuilding I shall not be much 
the worse for the terrific processes through which I have 
passed. ' Oh, magnify the Lord vnih me, and let us exalt 
his name together ! ' I am very, very weak, and restoration 
to strength must be expected to be gradual. The inevita- 
ble fall of the temperature is a great peril to me for several 
reasons, and hence my medical friend Avishes that I were 
away. • I hope to leave on Monday, 26th. Pray that I 
may safely perform the journey, and Mrs. Spurgeon also. 'A 
thousand miles ' is a serious word for such feeble folk. * The 
Lord will perfect that which concerneth me,' and when I 

253 



254 ^^^^^ 0^ SPURGE ON. 

return to you in peace we will hold a public thanksgiving, 
and bless our healing God. I shall leave you in the hands 
of our God. As a Church of the living God, you are as 
' a city set on a hill which cannot be hid.' Your love and 
unity and prayer and faith are known everywhere. 

" Will these bear the further strain which will be put 
upon them by the absence and feebleness of the pastor ? I 
I believe they will ; but let each one see to it that the post 
of service with which he or she may be individually con- 
cerned, is carried on with more than past efficiency. Souls 
must be saved, and Jesus glorified, whether the usual leader 
is present, or another, or no leader at all. The Lord hear 
my prayer for you, even as he has heard yours for me ! I 
am far too feeble to make any public appearance or I would 
come and plead that now in the hour of your testing you 
may be found as pure gold which fears not the continuance 
of the heat. I beg your co-operation with my brother and 
Mr. Stott, and the officers in all the regular work and ser- 
vice for the Lord. Let nothing flag. 

" There may be some deficiencies to be made up on my 
return, but let these be as light as possible. If friends 
took the seats there would be hone. I am not going to 
burden myself with any care. I leave the flock with the 
great Shepherd of the sheep, and I feel that you will be 
both led and fed. The Lord grant that, whether I speak 
or am silent, rejoice or sufifer, live or die, all may be to his 
glory and the progress of his gospel. I am a debtor now 
to all churches and to all classes of society. The sympathy 
shown me every day almost breaks my heart with gratitude. 
What am I ? One thing I know I am your loving servant 
in Christ Jesus, and the Lord's messenger to many, many 
souls who never saw me, but who have read the sermons. 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 255 

To you at the Tabernacle I am very near of kin. God 
bless you all. — Yours in our One Head." 

On Monday, October 26, as he had expected, he left the 
home to which he was never to return, and arrived safely 
at Calais. On the following day the long journey was re- 
sumed in a saloon car belonging to Baron Rothschild and 
kindly placed by him at Mr. Spurgeon's disposal. From 
Paris a telegram was sent back by one who saw him, say- 
ing : " He was beaming with brightness and gratitude, 
and said he had gained, not lost, strength on the journey." 
The following day Mr. Spurgeon telegraphed : " Reached 
Marseilles comfortably ; wife fatigued. I am better than 
at start. All praise God." In his first letter from the 
Continent to the Tabernacle he said : 

" My Dear Friends : If I do not write you to-day, which 
is only Wednesday, I could not get a letter to you for Sun- 
day. This might be no loss to you, but it would be a 
trouble to me, for somehow it has grown to be a pleasing 
habit to keep touch with you by a weekly letter. 

" Please praise the Lord for me and with me. I feel none 
the worse for the long journey I have already taken ; but 
I am strangely better. All the story of my cure has been 
marvelous, and this last part of it is all of a piece with 
the rest. * He restoreth my soul ' and ' he healeth all my 
diseases.' Let the name of the Lord be magnified, who 
has such compassion on one who feels his own unworthi- 
ness more than ever. * I was brought low, and he helped 
me.' 

" My doctor has reported my case to my friend. Dr. Fitz- 
henry, of Mentone, who is a man of equal skill and kind- 
ness — a happy blend ; so that none of you may think that 
I am distant from medical help if any return of disease 



256 ^^IFE OF SPURGEOX. 

should come. But I do not anticipate further relapses, for 
the temperature even here is like that of summer, and 
further on we look for much more warmth. This will greatly 
diminish liability to chills. 

" But my one great restorative will be new^s of revival at the 
Tabernacle. When sinners are saved and saints are sancti- 
fied my sun will have risen with healing on its wrings. If 
the Lord will work by Dr. Pierson and Mr. Stott and the 
brethren at home, and make them useful at a tenfold rate 
compared with me in my best days, I will unfeignedly rejoice. 
' Would God that all the Lord's people were prophets ! ' 
Oh, that he would use every man and women of you! 
Those whom the Lord does not use are very apt to be seized 
by another and turned to his evil purposes. Those who are 
not working bees usually turn into dead flies, and spoil the 
sweet ointments by the potful at a time. May no one in 
our church sink into such a wretched condition ; far rather 
may we be so blest as to become blessings to all around ! 

" Brethren and sisters, can you rise to a great oppor- 
tunity? I think you can, and will. My beloved brother 
from America has not been sent into your midst for a small 
purpose. If you knew the whole story of how he came to 
be where he now is, you would feel this as strongly as I do. 
He brings the divine proffer of a great blessing. Are we 
ready to receive it ? Are we prepared to use a flood tide ? 
Oh, that every member may say, ' I am ! ' Then ask what 
you will, believe that you have it, and go forth to ingather 
it. God never disappoints. We oflen lock doors against 
ourselves and refuse to be enriched. Let us do so no more 
— not one of us. Let us glorify God by accepting what he 
is waiting to bestow. 

" Accept each one my true love in Christ Jesus. Love 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 257 

one another with a pure heart fervently. My brother, 
whose care has made the journey less formidable, when 
he returns will have a cheering tale to tell of me and of 
my dear wife, whose presence with me makes every single 
enjoyment into seven. I am surrounded with unexpected 
mercies, and would ask you to help me to express a praise 
which one mouth can never adequately utter." 

" Mentone, November 5. 

" To THE Tabernacle — Beloved Friends : To reach 
you on the Lord's Day I write on Thursday. You wish to 
know how I am, and I will dispatch the weary question in a 
few words. I am much the same as when I left home, full 
of confidence that in answer to prayer I shall be perfectly 
restored. I must wait patiently in weakness till our 
Heavenly Father gives me back my strength. It is no 
small trial to feel the desire to do many things, and yet to 
have to feel anew your inability in the simplest eiforts. To 
go up a few steps, to take a short walk, to move a parcel, 
and all such trifles, becomes a difficulty, so that Solomon's 
words are true, ' The grasshopper is a burden.' I think I 
could preach, but when I have seen a friend for five 
minutes I begin to feel that I have had as much of speak- 
ing as I can well manage. Thus you see where I am, and 
while you thank God for his goodness in so far restoring 
me I again ask for your prayers that my disease may 
continue to decrease, and, above all, that I may have no 
relapse. Far better is my other subject. 

" From all I hear there is a hopeful interest excited in 
the ministry which the Lord has provided for you. The 
fish are round the boat. Now may the Lord enable the 
fishermen to cast the net skillfully, and may there be a 



258 I^I^^ ^F SPURGEON. 

great haul of great fishes. At times the greatest demand of 
the angler is for a landing net. He has a hold of the fish, 
but needs help in drawing him to shore. May every mem- 
ber of the church be such a landing net to the honored 
preachers whom they hear. Some of you know the sacred 
art by long practice, let others commence the blessed habit. 
Souls are being awakened all around you. Beloved, be 
awake yourselves! 'When thou hearest the sound of a 
going in the tops of the mulberry trees then shalt thou 
bestir thyself.' 

" I am writing in the early morning of a warm day of 
brilliant sunshine, and the very thought of your holy 
assembly, and your loving thoughts of me, makes all this 
tenfold more powerful to cheer and to restore me. If I 
had not such an attached people I should miss my greatest 
earthly joy, and succumb to the depression which physical 
weakness is so apt to produce. My dear brother will soon 
be with you to report my behavior, but I am doubly happy 
in having my beloved wife as my watchful companion, a 
joy especially given in this peculiar hour of need. The 
Lord himself bless every one of you, and especially those 
who minister in word and doctrine." 

" Mentone, November 12. 
"Beloved Friends: I have no striking progress to 
report, but I jeel I must be better, whatever the signs may 
say. Still, feelings are doubtful evidences; one thing is 
daily forced upon my mind — namely, that I am weak as 
water, and that building up is slower work than falling 
down. Meanwhile, patience must have her perfect work, 
and I may well be quieted into cheerful submission because 
I receive such happy accounts of the blessing resting upon 



LIFE OF SPUROEO^. 259 

the labors of my dear friend, Dr. Pierson. If nothing is 
injured by my absence the trial of being away is not bur- 
densome. If the Lord will bless my substitute more than 
he has done myself, I shall rejoice to have been put aside 
for awhile. Now, in this matter, much depends upon each 
member personally. The Lord will bless you through your- 
selves. The missionary spirit burns in the heart of Dr. 
Pierson ; Mr. Stott seems to be always on fire ; others among 
your officers are zealots for souls. May the whole man be 
alight with heavenly fire ! Then shall we see the congrega- 
tion and the surrounding neighborhood warmed with interest 
in the gospel, and at last melted into repentance by the 
heat of divine grace. I am much at ease about the testi- 
mony of my pulpit, for our friend Dr. Pierson does not 
flinch from defending truth and assailing false doctrine. 
From all I can hear, I judge that error is as rampant as 
ever, and is as much countenanced by the association of 
good men with those who hold it. If I had not borne my 
protest before, I should have been driven to bear it now. 
* Evil men and seducers will wax worse and worse.' As for 
us, beloved, let us abide in that which the Holy Ghost has 
taught us, and may that which he has written in the Book 
be also written by his own hand upon all our hearts. The 
Lord himself bless you." 

" Mentone, November 19. 
" I have very little to say this week, and nothing which 
need cause you any disquietude on my behalf, though it 
may prevent unwise expectations. My progress, according 
to the medical test, is not great ; still, I think things lean 
in the right direction. He who has raised me up from the 
grave can hasten the cure if he sees fit ; and if it does not 



260 ^IF^ OF SPVRGEON. 

seem good in his sight, I must ask for patience and be still. 
I never have a doubt as to my ultimate restoration, but my 
confidence is based upon the Lord's hearing prayer far 
more than on anything else. The advice to do as little as 
possible is so repeated to me that for this once I yield to it, 
and only send a card. What spiritual meat you are hav- 
ing from the Lord through his servant, feed thereon and 
grow." 

November 21st, he was compelled to write a letter to 
moderate and chasten the too hopeful expectation of his 
friends : " This morning I read in the * Times,' * Mr. Spurgeon 
is rapidly recovering.' These words exactly describe what 
I am not doing. I have seasons of utter prostration. Em- 
phatically any advance I make is the slowest of all slow 
things. I shall recover, for this is the tenor of the prayers 
which our God has so far answered. But there are no 
traces or signs of anything rapid." 

Truly, we " asked life of thee and thou gavest it him, 
even length of days forevermore." It was the temporal 
life we asked ; God gave the eternal. 

" Mentone, November 26. 
"Beloved Friends: I rejoice greatly in all the glad 
tidings which I have received concerning the blessing 
which rests upon the work among you. I hope the Lord 
has only begun to bless, and is about to bring forth greater 
things hitherto held in reserve. You are not straitened in 
him ; let no one be guilty of limiting the Holy One of 
Israel by unbelief or by slackness in action. Oh, for some 
crowning mercy for you all ! I cannot say that I am bet- 
ter, but then I am not worse, although I have been kept 



LIFE OF SPURGEOy. 261 

indoors by days of rain. I am always confidently hope- 
ful of complete recovery, and therefore I faint not in heart, 
even when the body is overcome with weakness. In com- 
pensation for these dumb Sabbaths, the Lord will give me 
years of free utterance of his word. So I trust and so you 
pray. The Lord himself bless you all ! " 

" Mentone, December 3. 
"Beloved Friends: My heart is glad at all tidings 
concerning you, for the Lord is evidently refreshing you 
through the ministry of our beloved Dr. Pierson. I can 
only write you a monotonous line or two, expressing my 
abiding love for the church at the Tabernacle, asking your 
renewed prayers, and describing my invalid experience, 
which is almost exactly as last week. Leaving all that, I 
am present with you in spirit at the great gathering around 
the Communion Table, which has often been to me as 
heaven below. Our Lord is there among us. He comes 
nearer to us than we can come to each other ; he becomes 
our food, and so enters into our being's self — nearer than 
even one member of the body to another member. * I in 
them ' is our Lord's way of putting it. I pray that each 
one of you may enjoy this living, loving lasting union with 
your risen Lord when at the table of the King." 

" Mentone, December 10. 
"Beloved Friends: Every message from home con- 
cerning the work at the Tabernacle comforts me. Your 
unity of heart and prayerfulness of spirit are a joy to me. 
How much I wish that I could look you in the face and 
lead you in prayer to the throne of the heavenly grace. I 
am, however, glad that I am not yet standing on the plat- 



262 LIFE OF SPUEGEON. 

form among you attempting public prayer or address, for 
emotion would carry me away, and I should soon be quite 
exhausted. I put this to practical proof by offering prayer 
with some six or seven friends. I was overcome, and was 
some time before I could recover myself. Still, the mind is 
ready, and the physical frame must in due time follow the 
road to restoration ; indeed, I feel better, and have no fear 
but in due season I shall be as strong as aforetime. It is 
not in my power to hasten to strength. This must come by 
degrees, as the Lord may please to grant it. Pray for me 
that the time may be not too long. I want all those 
who take an interest in Tabernacle work to see that the 
funds are all right at the close of the year. My absence has 
tried the home cause very much, and I hope that every one 
will resolve that no deficiency shall occur in an}i:hing, for 
that would be a great grief to me. Be thoughtfully gener- 
ous just now, and it will be most seasonable. We must 
never allow home funds to be straitened while we personally 
receive so freely of the grace of God. Mrs. Spurgeon and 
myself are happy to be privileged to be together in this 
sumiy land. We are both of us full of gratitude that we 
are spared to each other, and both thankful to you for re- 
membering us in your prayers. God bless you each one." 

" Mentone, December 17. 
" Though I cannot be present to wish you the blessings 
of the season, I would not use the words of compliment, but 
I would say from my heart, ' I wish you a most happy 
Christmas.' Upon your family gatherings may the best of 
blessing rest. May all your children be the Lord's children, 
and thus may your union in the bonds of the flesh be made 
eternal by the bonds of the Spirit ! Joy be with you ; yet 



LIFE OF SFUUGJEOy. 263 

let it be joy in the Lord. I think I can fairly say I am 
better. Whether or no the disease is disappearing, I cannot 
say, though I fear there is not much difference, but in gen- 
eral health I must be improved, or else my feelings are sheer 
delusion. At any rate, I am very hopeful and praiseful, and 
I wish I could stand up and give out Psalm 103." 

"Mentone, December 24-- 
"My Dear Friends: For the last time in the year 
1891 I write you, and with this brief note I send hearty 
gratitude for your loving kindness to me during the year 
which is ending, and fervent wishes for a special blessing 
on the year so soon to begin. I have nearly finished thirty- 
eight years of my ministry among you, and have completed 
thirty-seven volumes of published sermons preached in 
your midst. Yet we are not wearied of each other. I shall 
hail the day when I may again speak with you. Sur- 
rounded by ten thousand mercies, my time of weakness is 
rendered restful and happy ; but still to be able in health 
and vigor to pursue the blissful path of useful service would 
be my heaven below. To be denied activities which have 
become part of my nature seems so strange ; but as I cannot 
alter it, and as I am sure that infinite wisdom rules it, I 
bow before the divine will — my Father's -will. 

" Again the doctor reports favorably — ^that is to say, yes- 
terday he said that there was decided improvement as to the 
disease ; nothing great, but as much as he could hope for ; 
nothing speedy could be looked for, but matters were going 
most encouragingly. I was to be very careful about a chill, 
etc. This is an old and dull story to you. Only your 
prayerful and persevering interest in me could make me 
bold enough to repeat it. Honestly, I do not think you 



264 LI^^^ ^^ SPUR G EON. 

are losers by my absence, so long as the Lord enables our 
dear friend, Dr. Pierson, to preach as he does. There is a 
cloud of blessing resting on you now. Turn the cloud into 
a shower by the heavenly electricity of believing prayer. 
May the Watch Night be a night to be remembered, and 
on the first hour of the year may the Lord say, * From this 
day will I bless you.' " 

Mr. Spurgeon, writing in his magazine for January, after 
giving the doctor's verdict that there is a decided improve- 
ment, says : " I am so grateful to be alive, and to have the 
assured prospect of recovery, that I know not how to ex- 
press my thankfulness to God for answering the prayers of 
his people ; and I may well submit to his sacred will. I 
cannot boast of being able to wait patiently ; but I will be 
quiet as long as must be. Hitherto, a very little extra 
thinking, writing, or conversation, has shown me that I am 
a poor creature at my best. My peace of mind and cheer- 
fulness of spirit make me feel as good as well ; but as to 
strength, I cannot deceive myself with the notion that I 
can render any public service ; for even prayer with half a 
dozen overpowers me. Still, my own voice is coming back 
in force, and the far-away tone which my sickness brought 
me is not often heard. The weather here is so specially 
superb, w^eek after week, that I am much in the open air, 
and in the glorious sun, and this is God's own strengthen- 
ing medicine for weakness such as mine. My wife's pres- 
ence is also a main ingredient in my cup, which runs over 
with mercies." 

Mentone, December 31. 
" I believe I am right in reporting a greater change in 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 265 

the disease than could be spoken of before. It is still a 
great drain upon me ; but as it has improved so far, I be. 
lieve it will make more rapid diminution. What a joy it 
will be to be within measurable distance of the time to 
return to my pulpit and you. I have not reached that 
point yet. Noiv, may the Lord cause the cloud of blessing 
to hurst upon you in a great tropical shower. I am expect- 
ing this. Grateful beyond expression for all that the Lord 
has done and is doing, I am eager for more. Indulgence 
in covetousness is sinful, but not when we ' covet earnestly 
the best giftsJ All that I can do is to pray and expect. 
The Lord himself deal out to each one of his children a 
full portion, and to those who linger at the gate may the 
Good Spirit give his gracious drawings that they may cross 
the sacred threshold this day. • Peace be within the gates 
of our dear sanctuary, and prosperity within the doors. 
For my bcethren and companions' sake will I now say, 
* Peace be with thee.' " 

January IS, 1891. 
" My Dear Friends : There is nothing for me to say in 
reporting myself to headquarters beyond this — that I hope 
and believe that the steady and solid progress which has 
begun is continued and will continue. If a doctor were to 
visit me now for the first time, and were to investigate my 
disease, he would pronounce it a bad case ; but those who 
know what I have been, and how much worse than at 
present everything was, must wonder at me, and think it is 
a remarkably good case. God be thanked for all that he 
has done in answer to his people's prayers. Never let us 
have a doubt as to the fidelity and ability of God, of the 
promises, and of the mercy-seat. 

" On looking back upon the Valley of the Shadow of 



266 XZF^ OF SPUEGEON. 

Death through which I passed so short a time ago, I feel 
my mind grasping with firmer grip than ever that everlast- 
ing gospel which for so many years I have preached to you. 
We have not been deceived. Jesus does give rest to those 
who come to him ; he does save those who trust him ; he 
does photograph his image on those who learn of him. I 
hate the Christianized infidelity of the modern school more 
than ever, as I see how it rends away from sinful man his 
last and only hope. Cling to the gospel of forgiveness 
through the substitutionary sacrijiee ; and spread it with all 
your might, each one of you, for it is the only cure for 
bleeding hearts. 

" Peace be unto you as a whole, and peace be to each 
one ! I greet with whole-hearted gratitude my brother, Dr. 
Piei^on, and with unfeigned love each deacon, elder, and 
member, and worker. My own dear brother in the flesh is 
also ever watching over the concerns of our great work. 
May the Lord himself keep watch over all. To Mr. Stott 
I wish a long and prosperous ministry where the Lord shall 
direct him." 

"Mentone, January H, 1892. 

"My Dear Friends: I have* not seen the doctor since 
writing last time, and I have, therefore, little to say about 
my health so far as medical testimony goes. We have had 
a week of broken, uncertain weather — days of rain, intervals 
of wind and hours of cold. This has kept me very much 
within doors, for I dare not run the risk of a chill ; and 
therefore I fear I have made no progress, and can hardly 
^ope that I am quite so well as to my internal mischief. 
In other respects I feel fairly up to the mark, and deeply 
grateful to be free from pain, and free from fear as to the 
ultimate result. I earnestly hope that your weather will 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 267 

improve. AYhen it is bad here, what must it be with you ? 
The snow on the mountains reminds us of what others are 
enduring. I wish I could be in such health as to be always 
with you, but as this cannot be I am most thankful for the 
retreat afforded by this sheltered spot ; and even more so 
for the rest of heart which comes to me through knowing 
that you are all spiritually fed under the ministry of Dr. 
Pierson. May his health be maintained and that of his 
wife during your trying winter. You may feel sure that I 
am doing pretty w^ell, or the doctor would be looking me 
up. When he next calls I will have a bulletin from him ; 
and till then you may rest in peace about me. May the 
saturating showers of blessings for w^hich I am looking 
soon fall in tropical abundance, and may no part of the 
field be left dry. If there are any very sad, down-cast, and 
self-condemned ones among you, I desire my special love to 
them. The Lord himself looks from heaven to spy out such 
special characters. See Job 33 : 27, 28. I think this text 
is a message for somebody. May grace abound towards you." 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

LAST MESSAGES OF LOVE — THE END — EARTH TO EARTH. 

TT7ITH his wonted thoughtfulness, Mr. Spiirgeon seemed 
' » to remember every one of those over whom he watched 
and for whose welfare he labored and prayed when at home. 
The orphans had always held a special place in his heart. 
In former days, before he was compelled to winter at Men- 
tone, he would spend much of Christmas Day at the Or- 
phanage and dine there. It was his desire that his young 
friends there might enjoy to the full all such festal occasions. 
On December 21, of 1891, he sent a letter from Mentone 
to the boys and girls which was read to them at the dinner 
table. 

" Mentone, December 21, 1S91. 
" Dear Boys and Girls : I send you all my love, as 
far as the post can carry love at twopence half-penny for 
half an ounce. I wish you a real glorious Christmas : I 
might have said, 'a jolly Christmas,' if we had all been 
boys, but as some of us are girls I will be proper, and say, 
a ' merry Christmas.' Enjoy yourselves, and feel grateful to 
the kind friends who send money to keep the Stockwell 
Orphanage supplied. Bless their loving hearts ; they never 
let you Avant for anything. May they have pleasure in see- 
ing you all grow up to be all good men and women. Feel 
very grateful also to the trustees. These gentlemen are 
always at Avork arranging for your good. Give them three 
times three. Then there are Mr. Charlesworth, Mr. Ladds, 
268 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 269 

and all the masters and the matrons. Each one deserves 
your love and gratitude and obedience. They try to do you 
good ; try to cheer them all you can. I should like you to 
have a fine day, such a day as we have here ; but if not, you 
will be warm and bright indoors. Three cheers for those 
who give us the good things for this festival. I want you 
for a moment in the day to be all still, and spend the time 
in thanking our Heavenly Father and the Lord Jesus for 
the great goodness shown to you and to me, and then pray 
for me that I may get quite well. Mrs Spurgeon and I 
both send our love to all the Stock well family." 

The boys and girls also were mindful of their absent 
friend and his wife. They sent a bright letter, signed by 
the first girl and boy for the year, wishing Mr. and Mrs. 
Spurgeon a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. 

" We did not write to you when you were so ill, but we 
prayed for you every day. We have been made so happy 
ever since we knew you were getting better. We hardly 
knew what to send you, but we have now agreed to send 
you an English flower to wear on Christmas Day. You have 
more lovely flowers in France, but we hope you will like 
these as well, as they come from your loving boys and girls 
in the Orphahage. We thank dear Mrs. Spurgeon for her 
love to us ; and we are so glad that God has made her well 
enough to be with you at Mentone. Everybody is kind to 
us ; and you are our dearest earthly friend. 

'' Signed for all the boys and girls, 

" Kate Bishop, 

" Earnest James B arson." 



270 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

He sent also a most affectionate Christmas letter, asking 
that a blessing might rest upon all the family gatherings in 
the church. 

" The Sword and Trowel " for February contained two 
brief addresses by Mr. Spurgeon, made at Mentone ; one on 
the last evening of 1891, the other on the first morning of 
1892. That he was able to break the long silence was a fact 
most encouraging to his loving friends. This hope was 
sustained through the early part of January. January 9, 
he completed the revision of the report of Sermon No. 2241, 
on Psalm 145 : 7. "Never did he revise a sermon with 
greater ease or more delight," reports his secretary, Mr. 
Harrald, It was t^e last sermon which he revised. 

We insert here the last photograph that was taken of 
Mr. Spurgeon. He was in his carriage January 8, when, 
without his knowledge, the photograph was taken and sub- 
sequently enlarged. 

January 12, he took a drive. On the following day, he 
wrote a note for " The Sword and Trowel " on " The 'Bible 
and Modern Criticism." January 17, he expounded to a few 
friends. Psalm 103 ; and then offered the closing prayer. 
January 20, he went out to drive. -On his return, his hand 
was so painful from gout that he went to bed early, 
never to rise again. On the day following, the gout affected 
his head. Tuesday, January 26, was the day appointed for 
bringing to the Tabernacle thank-offerings for the pastor's 
partial recovery. He dictated to Mr. Harrald a telegram : 
" Self and wife — one hundred pounds, hearty thank-offering 
toward Tabernacle general expenses. Love to all friends," 
and then he fell into unconsciousness, which continued dur- 
ing most of the remaining time. He had said to Mr. Har- 
rald, " My work is done." And so it proved. On Sunday, 




Latest Picture of Mr. Spurgkon. Page 270. 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 273 

January 31, an bour before midnight, his wife, his brother, 
his son, and two other loving friends were beside him, and 
he was not, for God took him. 

As soon as the event was known, the wires were choked 
with messages of sympathy from all over the world, includ- 
ing a telegram from the Prince and Princess of Wales. The 
news reached London on Monday morning, February 1. 
That day had been appointed, at Mr. Spurgeon's own sug- 
gestion, as a day of special prayer for the abatement of the 
influenza. Meetings w^ere held in the morning, afternoon, 
and evening, and during each succeeding day of the week. 

On Lord's Day, February 7, a great crowd, dressed in 
deep mourning, filled the house. In the evening, the Lord's 
Supper followed, the pastor's chair being left empty. 

On Thursday, February 4, funeral services were held at 
Mentone, in the Scotch Presbyterian Church ; and then the 
body was taken to London by way of Dieppe and New 
Haven. The train reached Victoria Station, London, on 
Monday, February 8, at eleven o'clock. The olive wood 
coflin, covered with the palm branches sent from Mentone 
by Mrs. Spurgeon, was placed in the hearse, the great crowd 
standing with bared heads and often with streaming eyes. 
That night the sacred burden was placed in the great hall 
of the Tabernacle with a marble bust of Mr. Spurgeon 
above it on the lower platform. 

On Thursday, from seven in the morning until seven in 
the evening, a great multitude, estimated at sixty thousand, 
passed through the hall and looked at the cofiin, which was 
covered with flowers and wreaths. But it was especially 
desired by the church and by the family that his memory 
should be honored not so much by perishable flowers as by 
gifts to the work he had loved so much, to the College and 



274 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

to the Orphanage. At the sides of the coffin were cards, on 
which were inscribed messages of love from his nearest 
kindred. 

Wednesday was the great memorial day. In the morn- 
ing the members of the Tabernacle Church assembled, 
Pastor James A. Spurgeon, with whom all hearts were in 
sympathy, conducting the services. President Angus, of 
Regent's Park College, a former pastor of the church, gave 
some reminiscences of former days and pointed out the 
present duty. Dr. Pierson read a letter from Mrs. Spurgeon, 
a portion of which we have already quoted : " To-day he 
has been a week in heaven. Oh, the bliss, the rapture of 
seeing his Saviour's face ! Oh, the welcome home which 
awaited him as he left this sad earth ! Not for a moment 
do I wish him back, though he was dearer to me than 
tongue can tell." 

Dr. Pierson spoke of Mr. Spurgeon as an evangelist, as a 
pastor, and as a Christian believer. 

Mr. J. W. Harrald, the secretary, spoke of the precious 
three months at Mentone. 

In the noon interval a meeting of the Pastors' College 
Evangelical Association was held.' 

In the afternoon, ministers and students, representing all 
sections of the church, assembled in the Tabernacle. Dr. 
Maclaren, of Manchester, spoke of the spirit, the staple, 
and the spring of a successful ministry. In allusion to the 
simplicity of Mr. Spurgeon's preaching, he said : " I do 
not believe that any truth is so deep that it is not capable 
of expression in the English tongue which Bunyan and 
Spurgeon wielded." " Canon Fleming spoke of his friend- 
ship of twenty-five years with Mr. Spurgeon. Dr. Monroe 
Gibson represented the English Presbyterian Synod, of 



LIFE OF SPURGE ON. 211 

which he is Moderator ; Dr. Herber Evans the Congre- 
gational Union, and Dr. Stephenson the Wesleyan Confer- 
ence. Dr. Pierson represented America. 

In the evening the building was densely crowded with 
Christian workers of all denominations. George Williams, 
President of the London Young Men's Christian Association ; 
Sir Arthur Blackwood, Canon Palmer, Colonel Griffin (repre- 
senting the Baptist Union) each made an impressive address. 

The last meeting opened at 10.15 p. m. The house was 
filled with those whose labors made it impossible for them 
to be present during the day. Mr. Sankey, Mr. Fullerton, 
Mr. J. Manton Smith were the speakers. 

Thursday, February 11, was the day of the funeral. 
The last hymn which Mr. Spurgeon had ever given out, 
" The sands of time are sinking," was sung. An address 
was made by Dr. Pierson, and prayer offered by Rev. New- 
man Hall. The coffin was then borne out. The roads 
through which the procession passed were crowded on either 
side. The bells of the parish churches tolled, the shops and 
even the public houses were closed. 

At the Stockwell Orphanage, the children, seated on a 
covered platform, watched the last honors to their benefactor. 
At the Norwood Cemetery Rev. Archibald G. Brown, his 
pupil and life-long friend, made an address of touching elo- 
quence, bidding him farewell. Prayer was offered by Dr. 
Pierson. The benediction was pronounced by Rt. Rev. 
Randall T. Davidson, Lord Bishop of Rochester, who had 
expressed to Rev. James A. Spurgeon a desire to take part 
in the services at the grave. 

And then they sadly left him in his grave near the resting 
place of the missionary Moffatt, to await the morning when 
those who sleep with Jesus God shall bring with him. 



278 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

Meanwhile, memorial services were lield wherever the 
English language is spoken. Nor was the interest confined 
to any one denomination. Nowhere were these expressions 
of feeling more heartfelt and general than in America. In 
Philadelphia a service was held by the Baptist Ministers' 
Conference, on Monday morning, February 8, in the Tab- 
ernacle Church, the Presbyterian Ministers' Meeting ad- 
journing that the members might be present. Addresses 
were made by President H. G. Weston, Dr. Frederic Evans 
and others, and an elaborate tribute, drawn up by Dr. G. D. 
Boardman, was cabled to the Tabernacle. Another meeting 
was held in the Memorial Church on the evening of Thurs- 
day, the day of the funeral, in which ministers of the Pres- 
byterian and Methodist churches took part. In New York, 
Boston, Chicago, and in nearly every city similar tributes 
were paid. 

Never, within the memory of men now living, has there 
been so widespread and deep emotion. When Lincoln died 
there was no cable and the news was ten days (3ld here 
when it reached Europe, and twice that time elapsed before 
the echo from the Eastern Continent returned to us. Now 
the cable gave to all hearts one thought, and the Christian 
world stood uncovered at his grave. 

We have endeavored to give a truthful and, so far as 
space and time were allowed us, an adequate portrayal of a 
noble and lovable man, an exalted character, a beneficent 
and divine life. We do not make any claim to have been 
unbiassed, if in that term is implied aught of indifference. 
The reader may make any allowance that he thinks de- 
manded for the fact that we have written under the spell of 
admiration and affection. And we freely confess that the 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 283 

more we have studied him during these past weeks the more 
have these sentiments been deepened. 

It is with regret that we close a labor which was of the 
heart. We seem to be leaving his presence. We sympa- 
thize with the feelings which he experienced as he finished 
the last page of " The Treasury of David." 

Loving brother, brave soldier of Christ, loyal servant of 
God, champion of the Truth, father of the fatherless, great- 
souled hero, hail and farewell till the day break and the 
shadows flee away. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

CONTEMPORARY JUDGMENTS. 

rpHE reader may desire to know how Mr. Spurgeon was 
-1- estimated by the leading public opinion of his day. 
We append articles from London weekly papers, represent- 
ing different phases of thought. The following is from 
" The Spectator " (Conservative-Unionist) : 

" The Nonconformist Churches, and indeed all churches, 
have lost in Mr. Spurgeon a man of considerable powers 
and of immense influence, which was persistently and 
strenuously exerted to do good. He was probably the 
most successful preacher to an audience of bourgeois who 
ever lived, and it is not difficult to understand why. There 
is an idea afloat that Englishmen are growing sceptical, 
and as regards one section of the cultivated, and the semi- 
Socialist division of the workmen, it is partly true ; but 
the lower division of the middle class, a thick stratum in 
English society, for the most part retains, though it does 
not always follow, its old faith. Its members believe in 
Evangehcalism, qualified by shrewd sense, and find in that 
gospel a sufficient rule of conduct in most emergencies of 
life. They do not, therefore, wish their faith to be dis- 
turbed, or even much expounded in the Scotch way, but to 
be assumed or expressed clearly, and applied to all the con- 
tingencies of life by a preacher with gifts, the greater the 
gifts the better, but without originality of religious thought. 
They also desire, and this most heartily, that their teacher 
284 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 285 

should be a man who believes his message more earnestly 
than his audience do, who is visibly and unmistakably 
earnest in enthusiasm, who lives straight up to his own 
principles and their ideal, and who is independent enough 
to rebuke all backsliding with a certain energy. They 
found all these requirements satisfied to the full in Mr. 
Spurgeon. Gifted with a superb voice, and possessed by a 
theology which was exactly that of his congregation, the 
preacher poured out before them arguments which, nine 
times out of ten, contained nothing but common-sense 
applied to religion or the conduct of life, but which were 
so aptly and intelligibly expressed, so warmed by convic- 
tion, so familiar and yet so new, that they made on those 
who heard them all the impression of the loftiest eloquence. 
They convinced, if they did not exactly waken, and made 
thousands of ordinary men, exposed, sometimes in an 
unusual degree, to ordinary temptations distinctly stronger 
to resist them. 

" His English was always admirable, though it was some- 
times not refined ; he was a master of felicitous illustration, 
drawn often from the homeliest things ; and he knew how 
to become impressive, and occasionally drive a truth home 
with the startling force which comes from the unexpected. 
He was not a great orator, but he was for his audience a 
most rousing and convincing preacher. The influence of 
his words was, of course, materially aided both by his 
character and the independence of his position. He was 
the manliest of men, never posed, never disguised anjrthing, 
would say his own thought, however unpopular it might be, 
and detested the fads which it has been a fashion of this 
half of the century to add to the Christian law. Believing 
in charity, he practiced it, and gave with both hands ; but 



286 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

lie held that men should work for their living, and not 
sponge on the community, and hated the modern feeling of 
' pity ' for the thriftless and the idle. His opinion about 
all sorts of beggars, was summed up in his apophthegm, 
' There should be patience and pity for poverty ; but for 
laziness, give me a long whip.' 

" Mr. Spurgeon was helped to independence, too, by his 
practical abihty. He cared personally nothing about 
money ; he could give away " like a prince ; " but he had 
the faculty, often so painfully absent from the clergy, 
whether Established or Nonconformist, of managing large 
pecuniary affairs. Thousands might be given him, and it 
was certain not only that he would steal none — a trait now 
practically universal in English teachers of religion, who 
are trusted on that point as no priesthood ever has been in 
the world — but that he would spend the money wisely, 
would waste none on fads, and would have as clear a result 
for his cash as if he had been a shopkeeper buying stock. 
His orphanages are models of good management. His in- 
dependence reacted on his spiritual influence, every listener 
feeling that what he said, he said because he thought it, and 
for no other earthly reason, and, combined with his habit- 
ual abstinence from cant — by which, in this place, we mean 
the utterance of words only because they have a pious effect 
— it gave weight to his eloquence and edge to his powers of 
persuasion. Mr. Spurgeon was a great preacher, first of 
all because he believed, and had the necessary gifts to be 
one ; but his powers were visibly enlarged by his character, 
with its energy, its abihty, as well as its determined 
independence." 

The following is from the "Speaker" (Gladstone- 
Liberal) : 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 287 

" The tributes which have been paid to Mr. Spurgeon by 
the press of all sections of opinion have been so generous 
as well as just that they leave little to be said by those who 
held him in special regard. His was a great and striking 
individuality, and he had impressed it upon the imagina- 
tions of his fellow-countrymen as no other ecclesiastic of 
his time succeeded in doing. And this he secured solely in 
virtue of his merits and qualities as a minister of the 
church to which he belonged. Mr. Spurgeon was ' the pas- 
tor of the Tabernacle ' and the chief of the organization 
which he had gradually built up around that place of wor- 
ship. That was all. Yet his death is universally regarded 
as a loss to the nation at large, and the newspapers of every 
party and sect vie with each other in paying honor to his 
memory. 

" What was the secret of this great man's success in life ? 
Unquestionably the foundation of Mr. Spurgeon's success 
was his wonderful gift as a preacher. We said some months 
ago, when he was lying very ill, that among the natural 
orators of this generation he stood next to Mr. Bright. We 
see now that some are inclined to belittle his oratorical 
powers. It can only be because they have not themselves 
been ^ under the wand of the magician.' No one who has 
will question the fact that Mr. Spurgeon was endowed with 
gifts as an orator such as hardly any other man of his time 
possessed. Of course, his eloquence was not like that of Mr. 
Gladstone or Canon Liddon, for example. It even differed 
in certain essentials from that of Mr. Bright, which, on the 
whole, it most nearly resembled. But of its own kind there 
was nothing to equal it in the pulpit of any church in the 
land. If the preacher at the.Tabernacle never assayed " the 
poet's star-crowned harp to sweep;" if he scrupulously 



288 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

avoided the ornate flights of eloquence which are so dear 
to most orators, — he never failed to makeh is admirable prose 
sink even into the most unwilling ears. Many men went to 
the Tabernacle, especially in its early days, prepared to 
scoff. Few came away without owning that they had 
listened to a man who had literally compelled them to 
attend to all he said, and whose bright, simple, picturesque, 
and always forcible utterances were pitched in a key which 
attuned itself to every ear, and found entrance to every 
heart. 

" But other churches have had preachers of an eloquence 
hardly inferior to that of Mr. Spurgeon. How comes it 
that they never won the hearts of the people of Great 
Britain as he did ? Canon Liddon, whose name occurs so 
naturally when we speak of pulpit eloquence ; Bishop Alex- 
ander, Archbishop Magee, and many others, might fairly 
have competed, so far as mere gifts of speech w^ere concerned, 
with the pastor of the Tabernacle. Yet not one of them held 
his place in English life, or anything approaching to it. 
We mean no disrespect to these eminent men when we say 
that Mr. Spurgeon's triumph, his unrivalled success in hold- 
ing the hearts of so large a body of his fellow-countrymen, 
was distinctly a triumph of character. It was not merely 
because of his pulpit eloquence, it was certainly not because 
of any intellectual superiority to his fellow-teachers and 
preachers, that he was trusted and esteemed so much above 
them all. It was because the great British public had ar- 
rived at the conviction that he was absolutely sincere, sim- 
ple, unpretending, and straightforward. There have been 
preachers of rare gifts in the Free Churches of England 
and Scotland who would command crowded congregations 
whenever they appeared, who had a large and devoted fol- 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 289 

lowing of admirers, but who could never touch or reach the 
larger public because of a certain suspicion of charlatanry 
or self-seeking attaching to them. For thirty years past 
Mr. Spurgeon has been as free from the faintest suggestion 
of such a suspicion as it was possible for any human being 
to be ; and men everywhere have known that it was his 
Master, not himself, on w^hose service he was bent. 

" In this triumph of personal character, and in one other 
feature of his life's-w^ork, w^e may read the secret of his as- 
tonishing success. That other feature was the stern fidelity 
he show^ed from first to last to the Puritan creed of his fore- 
fathers. In this, as in everything else, his motto was 
Thorough ! ' With him, at least, there was no tampering 
with modern doubts, modern speculations, new discoveries 
in science, the higher criticism. Never for a moment did 
he weaver in his conviction that the truth he had learned as 
a boy was everything. The world, sw^eeping onwards, finds 
the stars which shone of old with so clear and steady a 
lustre changing their place in the firmament and growing 
dim wdth the growing years, w^hilst new stars spring into 
view and draw to themselves the wondering gaze of the 
multitude. For Mr. Spurgeon, as for all of us, new stars 
might spring into being ; but to his mind they could have 
only one purpose, one mission — the renewing and extending 
of the glory of the Sun of his worship. It is something in 
a faithless age, or, in what is still worse, an indifferent and 
invertebrate age, to meet with one whose faith can withstand 
every assault, whose trust would remain unshaken if all the 
world were to turn, against him. And the creed to which 
Mr. Spurgeon clung with this ardent love and confidence 
was the creed which the great mass of English people had 
been taught from their cradles upwards. Is it w^onderful 



290 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

that when the old Puritanism was preached, not merely 
with such eloquence, but with such genuine fervour of con- 
viction, the preacher should have rallied round himself 
thousands and scores of thousands who found in him the 
very champion and leader for whom they had long been 
hoping and praying? Narrow-minded, bigoted, crude, 
ignorant — all these terms of reproach were flung in turn at 
Mr. Spurgeon, and they hurt him no more than did the 
passing breeze. Nor can those who knew him and who 
knew his preaching forget that, despite the stern fidelity 
which he showed to a creed that is no longer that of the 
world, he had a heart filled wdth love for his fellow-creatures, 
with compassion for the sinner, with the burning desire that 
when the end of all things had come, and the Great Account 
was closed, no human soul which had found itself moved by 
the Divine Spirit might fail of salvation. And with it all 
he was no priest. Never once were the sympathies of a 
priest-hating people ruffled by the slightest assumption of 
spiritual authority on the part of their teacher. He was a 
plain man like themselves, with no pretention to ecclesiasti- 
cal or priestly powers, satisfied to be the minister and ser- 
vant of the Lord he loved. 

" It was thus that the good man we mourn to-day drew to 
himself, not merely the admiration, but the confidence and 
aflfection of a body of men and women whose numbers can- 
not be counted, but who are to be found in every corner of 
the world in which the English tongue is spoken. And 
whilst to hundreds of thousands of his fellow-creatures he 
ministered in his own way, week by week, in all spiritual 
truths, he exercised an influence over those who had little 
sympathy with his creed which can hardly be calculated 
and which was wholly for good. For the moment his loss 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 291 

seems well-nigh irreparable, nof to his congregation only, 
but to London and his country." 

The following is from the " British Weekly " (Evange- 
lical-Undenominational-Liberation) : 

"He has fallen like a tower, and his removal means 
for many a change in the whole landscape of life. A 
London Tory newspaper spoke of his death as attracting 
much less attention than that of Cardinal Manning. AYhat 
did the children at the schools, the servants in the kitchen, 
the cottars in the Highlands, the old women in wretched gar- 
rets, know of Manning ? But all these — all the nation, for 
the nation is Christian still — knew Spurgeon. In Scotland 
he was even more regarded than in England, and in Amer- 
ica perhaps his fame stood higher than anywhere else. His 
years were not many when he died, but he had lived long, 
and had maintained to the very last the splendor of his 
fame. Had Mr. Gladstone died at Mr. Spurgeon's age, he 
would by this time have been completely forgotten. Even 
as it was, Mr. Spurgeon was to the majority of his country- 
men a still more conspicuous figure than Mr. Gladstone ; 
it is not too much to say he was venerated beyond all other 
men. 

" The popular judgment is often mistaken ; but it may be 
trusted to detect a charlatan in time. For the public ear, 
though easy to gain, is exceedingly hard to keep. It says 
much both for the power and the essential integrity of Mr. 
Spurgeon that he caught it when a mere boy, and never lost 
it for a moment. This was due first of all to his oratorical 
power. Two orators of the first rank have appeared in our 
time: Mr. Bright and Mr. Spurgeon. His marvelous 
voice, clear as a silver bell's and winning as a woman's, 
rose up against the surging multitude, and without effort 



292 LIFE OF SPURGEON: 

entered every ear. The homely, sturdy Englishman, with 
his air of composed mastery, his unfailing command of 
lucid Saxon, his power to rise on occasion to the heights of 
eloquence, his compassionate understanding of the life of 
his people, and above all his yearning for their salvation, 
will not easily pass from the nation's memory and heart. 
Mr. Spurgeon's almost supernatural keenness of observa- 
tion was a great element of his influence. A well-known 
neighbor of his has never been able to recognize his mem- 
bers, because he cannot recall faces. It is not a fault ; but 
it is a misfortune. Mr. Spurgeon at one time, as he sat on 
his platform, could name every one of his five thousand 
members. He also remembered even visitors with whom 
he had a very slight acquaintance ; and when they came 
to the Tabernacle, instantly detected them. He was pretty 
sure to contrive some way of making signs to them before 
the service ended — in manners sometimes quaint enough. 

" He was, however, much more than a great orator. The 
present writer, thrown on one occasion for six months 
where books were scarce, commenced to read a complete 
set of the ""Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit," and went 
through all the volumes. We can- hardly imagine any one 
doing this without receiving a profound and permanent 
impression. More, the astonishing ability of the preacher 
is as marked as his eloquence and his sincerity. In this re- 
spect he has hardly received justice. Many talk still of 
his "crab-apple fertility," and compare him compassion- 
ately with such men as Liddon. In truth, there was no com- 
parison ; in point of sheer ability, Spurgeon was as far 
above Liddon as Liddon was above Farrar. As an un- 
prejudiced and competent critic, the Rev. H. R. Haweis 
said, many years ago : " It is perfectly extraordinary how 



LIFE OF SPUBGEON. 293 

able and powerful the great Baptist can be within his very- 
narrow doctrinal limits." We do not think that he suc- 
ceeded to any great extent outside of the sermons, although 
his "John Ploughman " publications contain much racy 
matter. In the sermons there are many passages which a 
really catholic anthology of English prose would not omit, 
and an informing spirit which hardly breathes among us 
now. 

" It may seem a hard saying, but it cannot be doubted 
that his theology was a main element in his lasting attrac- 
tion. Why has Calvinism flourished so exceedingly in the 
damp, low-lying, thickly-peopled, struggling regions of 
South London — where James Wells, an utterly uneducated 
man, and a Calvinist so high that he thought Mr. Spurgeon 
a dangerous heretic, divided the honors with his young 
neighbor, and had such a funeral as South London had 
never seen before ? To begin with, all religions for the 
masses are essentially the same. A^ Roman Catholic theo- 
logian. Father Dalgairns, says : " Go and preach your 
uncertain hell and your obscure atonement in the streets of 
our large towns, how many proselytes will you gain among 
the masses, the stench of whose corruptions goes up to 
heaven more foully every day ? You tempt them by the 
dubious boon of a universal salvation, but in so doing you 
deprive them of the consolation of a Saviour." Mr. 
Spurgeon always made salvation a wonderful, a super- 
natural thing — won through battle and agony and gar- 
ments rolled in blood. 

" This great and hard-won salvation was sure ; that is, * it 
did not stand in the creature ' ; it rested absolutely with 
God. It was not of man, nor of the will of the flesh. Mr. 
Spurgeon's hearers had many of them missed all the prizes 



294 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

of life ; but God did not choose them for the reasons that 
move man's preference, else their case were hopeless. 
Their election was of grace. And as he chose them, he 
would keep them. The perseverance of the saints is a doc- 
trine without meaning to the majority of Christians. But 
many a poor girl with the love of Christ and goodness in 
her heart, working her fingers to the bone for a pittance 
that just keeps her alive, with the temjotations of the streets 
around her, and the river beside her, listened with all her 
soul when she heard that Christ's sheep could never perish. 
Many a struggling tradesman tempted to dishonesty ; many 
a widow with penury and loneliness before her, were lifted 
above all, taught to look through and over the years com- 
ing thick with sorrow and conflict, and anticipate a place 
in the Church Triumphant. 

" There is a very prevalent notion that the doctrine of a 
universal Fatherhood as often preached, springs from a 
truer charity and is more comforting than the old way of 
teaching that God is the Father of his children through 
faith. A man says, ' God is the Father of the East-end of 
London,' and thinks he has uttered a consoling truth. 
What Mr. Spurgeon felt was that the Fatherhood of God 
must mean a great deal more than that. In a sense God is 
the Father of the most degraded, but what does that come 
to? Before we know the Fatherly nature the Son must 
reveal it, and if we dare to sWy it, there is something be- 
yond that. The going out of the-.Jivine heart to poor, lost, 
guilty creatures is an expression of the lower deep of love 
in God's own being, and means something — means every- 
thing for as many as receive it. It is not the cold comfort, 
the unsheltering shadow of an empty phrase. 

" The very poor — it must be remembered that South Lon- 



LIFE OF SPURGEON. 295 

don is the poorest part of the metropolis — are beginning to 
hope that councils and parliaments will do much for them. 
They may find it so, but Mr. Spurgeon made little of such 
things. He taught them — the staple of his sermon is — that 
now in the living communion of the soul with Christ, they 
might have all the joy they needed. A man too wise, too 
experienced, not to know how slowly the battles of the poor 
are won, and how little their victories often yield — he in- 
sisted on the joy and peace in believing, which the world 
could neither give nor take away. Life might pursue its 
hard, monotonous way of obscure toil, scanty wages, and a 
great weight of care, but over it all there might rest a soft 
and sacred light. The common people heard this gladly, 
and well they might, for it is so. Perhaps when they have 
had a little more experience of the politician they will hear 
it more glady than ever. 

" Personally Mr. Spurgeon was keenly alive to the humor- 
ous side of things — witty, brilliant, and sometimes exuber- 
ant. But as is so often the case with such natures, his 
thoughts turned habitually to the wistful, pathetic, mel- 
ancholy side of life. George Herbert's lines fitted him well : 

' Not that he may not here 

Taste of the cheer, 
But as birds drink and straight lift up their head, 

So must he sip and think 

Of better drink 
He may attain to aftei he is dead. 

' But as his joys are double, 

So is his trouble; 
He hath two winters, other things but one; 

Both frorts and thoughts do nip 

And bite his lip; 
And he of all things fears two deaths alone.' 

"In manner he was scrupulously and even anxiously 



296 LIFE OF SPURGEON. 

courteous. For long he mixed little in sociijty ; lie was 
busy with his tremendous labor, and incessantly occupied 
in reading. He had a great collection of commentaries 
arranged in order round the wall of his sanctum, and never 
preached without consulting each on his text. Though 
his habits of preparation were peculiar, they were thorough 
and exact. Never did he trifle with the chief duty of his 
sacred office. 

" But we must leave many things unsaid. Never has a 
man with such an experience appeared in the Christian 
church ; never one who has addressed so many of his 
fellow creatures on the things of God ; never one the ob- 
vious results of whose ministry have been so great. ' I 
shall never hear you calling,' we say as we think of that 
unforgotten voice. But its echoes will linger when the 
strife of tongues is passing. Multitudes will think with 
affectionate and respectful sympathy of the bereaved wife 
and sons, and of the great church over which he presided. 
We have all lost much, but he has gained more. His was 
a nature little fitted for many things that befell him in the 
last lacerating years— less fitted still for the long inaction 
which was the best his physicians dare to hope for. Better 
for him, perhaps, that he has gone up the shining road." 



APPENDIX, 



BAPTISMAL REGENERATION. 

"And he said unto them, Go ye into all the world, and preach the 
gospel to every creature. He that believeth and is baptized shall be 
saved ; but he that believeth not shall be damned."— Mark ^16 : 15, 16. 

An the occasion when our Lord sent forth the eleven to 
^ preach the gospel to every creature, he ' 'appeared unto 
them as they sat at meat, and upbraided them with their 
unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not 
them who had seen him after he was risen ; " from which 
we may surely gather, that, to preach the w^ord, the Lord 
was pleased to choose imperfect men — men, too, who of 
themselves were very weak in the grace of faith in which 
it was most important that they should excel. Faith is 
the conquering grace, and is of all things the main requi- 
site in the preacher of the word; and yet the honored 
men who were chosen to be the leaders of the divine cru- 
sade needed a rebuke concerning their unbel ief. Why was 
this ? Because the Lord has ordained evermore that we 
should have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the ex- 
cellency of the power may be of God, and not of us. If 
you should find a perfect minister, then might the praise 
and honor of his usefulness accrue to man ; but God is 
frequently pleased to select for eminent usefulness men 
evidently honest and sincere, but who have some manifest 
infirmity by which all the glory is cast off from them and 
laid upon himself, and upon himself alone. Let it never 
be supposed that we who are God's ministers either excuse 
our faults or pretend to perfection. We do not base the 
claims of God's truth upon the spotlessness of our charac- 
ters, but on the fact that it comes from him. You have 
believed in spite of our infirmities, and not because of 
our virtues, AVe come unto you often with much tremb- 

297 



298 APPENDIX. 

ling, sorrowing over our follies and weaknesses, but we 
deliver to you God's Word as God's Word, and we beseech 
you to receive it, not as coming from us, but as proceed- 
ing from the eternal and thrice-holy God. 

-Our Lord having thus given us an insight into the 
character of the persons w^hom he has chosen to proclaim 
his truth, then goes on to deliver to the chosen champions 
their commission for the holy war. I pray you mark the 
words with solemn care. He sums up in a few words the 
wliole of their work, and at the same time foretells the 
result of it, telling them that some would doubtless be- 
lieve and,so be saved, and some on the other hand would 
not believe and would most certainly, therefore, be 
damned — that is, condemned forever to the penalties of 
God's wrath. The lines containing the commission of 
our ascended Lord are certainly of the utmost importance, 
and demand devout attention and implicit obedience, not 
only from all who aspire to the work of the ministry, but 
also from all who hear the message of mercy. A clear un- 
derstanding of these words is absolutely necessary to our 
success in the Master's work ; for if we do not understand 
the commission, it is not at all likely that we shall dis- 
charge it aright. To alter these words were more than 
impertinence: it would involve the crime of treason 
against the authority of Christ and the best interests of the 
souls of men. 

Wherever the apostles went they met with obstacles to 
the preaching of the gospel* and the more open and effec- 
tual the utterance, the more numerous were the adversa- 
ries. These brave men so wielded the sword of the 
Spirit as to put to flight all their foes ; and this they did 
not by craft and guile, but by making a direct cut at the 
error which impeded them. Never did they dream for a 
moment of adapting the gospel to the unhallowed tastes 
or prejudices of the people, but at once directly and boldly 
they brought down with both hands the mighty sword of 
the Spirit upon the crown of the opposing error. This 
morning, in the name of the Lord of Hosts, my helper 
and defence, I shall try to do the same ; and if I should 
provoke some hostility — if I should through speaking 
what I believe to be the truth lose the friendship of some 



ArPKyDTX. 290 

and stir up the enmity of more — I cannot help it. As I 
am soon to appear before my Master's bar, I will this day, 
if ever in my life, bear my testimony for truth, and run 
all risks. The Lord knoweth I have nothing in my heart 
but the purest love to the souls of those whom I feel im- 
peratively called to rebuke sternly in the Lord's name. 
Among my hearers and readers, some will censure if not 
condemn me, but 1 cannot help it. It is sweet to every 
one to be applauded, but if for the sake of the comforts 
of respectability and the smiles of men any Christian 
minister shall keep back a part of his testimony, his 
Master at the last shall require it at his hands. 

I find that the great error which we have to contend 
with is one in direct opposition to my text, well known 
to you as the doctrine of baptismal regeneration. We 
will confront this dogma with the assertion that bapfisjii 
icithout faith saves no one. The text says, ^^ He that be- 
lieveth and is baptized shall be saved," but w^hether a 
man be baptized or no, it asserts that ''^ he that believeth 
not shall be damned." So that baptism does not save the 
unbeliever ; nay, it does not in any degree exempt him 
from the common doom of all the ungodly. He may have 
baptism, or he may not have baptism ; but if he believeth 
not, he shall in any case be most surely damned. Let 
him be baptized by immersion, or be sprinkled, in his in- 
fancy or adult age, if he be not led to put his trust in 
Jesus Christ — if he remaineth an unbeliever — then this 
terrible doom is pronounced upon Jiim, " He that believ- 
eth not shall be damned." I am not aware that any 
Protestant church in England teaches the doctrine of 
baptismal regeneration, except one, and that happens to 
be the corporation, which with none too much humility, 
calls itself the Church of England. This very powerful 
sect does not teach this doctrine merely through a section 
of its ministers, who might charitably be considered as 
evil branches of the vine, but it openly declares this 
doctrine in its own appointed standard, the Book of Com- 
mon Prayer, and that in words so express, that while 
language is the channel of conveying intelligible sense, 
no process short of violent wresting from their plain 
meaning can ever make them say anything else. 



300 



APPENDIX. 



Here are the words — we quote them from the Catechism 
which is intended for the instruction of youth, and is 
naturally very plain and simple, since it would be foolish 
to trouble the youth with metaphysical refinements. The 
child is asked its name, and is questioned, "Who gave 
you this name?" "My godfathers and godmothers in 
my baptism ; wherein I was made a member of Christ, 
the child of God, and an inheritor of the kingdom of 
heaven." Is not this definite and plain enough ? I prize the 
words for their candor : they could not speak more plainly. 
Three times over the thing is put, lest there should be any 
doubt in it. The word regeneration may, by some sort of 
juggling, be made to mean something else, but here there 
can be no misunderstanding. The child is not only made 
"a member of Christ," — union to Jesus is no mean spir- 
itual gift, — but he is made in baptism "the child of God " 
also ; and, since the rule is, " if children, then heirs," he 
is also made "an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven." 
I venture to say that while honesty remains on earth the 
meaning of these words will not admit of dispute. It is 
clear as noonday that, as the Rubric hath it, "Fathers, 
mothers, masters, and dames are to cause their children, 
servants or apprentices," no matter how wicked they may 
be, to learn the Catechism, and to say that in baptism they 
were made members of Christ and children of God. 

The form for the administration of this baptism is 
scarcely less plain and outspoken, seeing that thanks are 
expressly returned unto Almighty God because the person 
baptized is regenerated: " Then shall the priest say, 'See- 
ing, now, dearly beloved brethren, that this child is 
regenerate and grafted into the body of Christ's church, 
let us give thanks unto Almighty God for these benefits ; 
and with one accord make our prayers unto him, that this 
child may lead the rest of his life according to this begin- 
ning.' " Nor is this all ; for, to leave no mistake, we 
have the words of the thanksgiving prescribed : " Then 
shall the priest say, ' We yield thee hearty thanks, most 
merciful Father, that it hath pleased thee to regenerate 
this infant with thy Holy Spirit, to receive him for thine 
own child by adoption, and to incorporate him into thy 
holy church.' " 



APPEynix. 301 

This, then, is the clear and unmistakable teaching of a 
church calling itself Protestant. I am not now dealing 
at all with the question of infant baptism : I have nothing 
to do with that at this time. I am now considering the 
question of baptismal regeneration, whether in adults or 
infants, or ascribed to sprinkling, pouring, or immersion. 
Here is a church which teaches every Lord's Day in the 
Sunday-school, and should, according to the Rubric, teach 
openly in the church, all children that they were made 
members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors of the 
kingdom of heaven when they were baptized ! Here is a 
professedly Protestant church, w^hich, every time its min- 
ister goes to the font, declares that every person there 
receiving baptism is there and then "regenerated and 
grafted into the body of Christ's church." 

"But," I hear many good people exclaim, "there are 
many good clergymen in the church who do not believe 
in baptismal regeneration!" To this my answer is 
prompt, — Why, then, do they belong to a church which 
teaches that doctrine, in the plainest terms ? I am told 
that many in the Church of England preach against her 
own teaching. I know they do, and herein I rejoice in 
their enlightenment, but I question, gravely question, 
their morality. To take oath that I sincerely assent or 
consent to a doctrine which I do not believe, would to my 
conscience appear little short of perjury, if not absolute, 
downright perjury ; but those who do so must be judged 
by their Lord. For me to take money for defending what 
I do not believe — for me to take the money of a church, 
and then to preach against what are most evidently its 
doctrines — I say /or me to do this (I shall not judge the 
peculiar views of other men), for me or for any other 
simple, honest man to do so, were an atrocity so great 
that, if I had perpetrated the deed, I should consider my- 
self out of the pale of truthfulness, honesty, and common 
morality. For clergymen to swear or say that they give 
their solemn assent and consent to what they do not 
believe, is one of the grossest pieces of immorality per- 
petrated, and is most pestilential in its influence, since it 
directly teaches men to lie whenever it seems necessary 
to do so in order to get a living or increase their supposed 



302 APPENDIX. 

usefulness : it is in fact an open testimony from priestly 
lips that, at least in ecclesiastical matters, falsehood may 
express truth, and truth itself is a mere unimportant 
nonentity. I know of nothing more calculated to debauch 
the public mind than a want of straightforwardness in 
ministers; and when worldly men hear ministers de- 
nouncing the very things which their own Prayer Book 
teaches, they imagine that words have no meaning among 
ecclesiastics, and that vital differences in religion are 
merely a matter of tweedle-dee and tweedle-dum, and 
that it does not much matter what a man does believe so 
long as he is charitable toward other people. If baptism 
does regenerate people, let the fact be preached with a 
trumpet tongue, and let no man be ashamed of his belief 
in it. If this be really their creed, by all means let them 
have full liberty for its propagation. 

My brethren, those are honest churchmen in this matter 
who, subscribing to the Prayer Book, believe in baptismal 
regeneration, and preach it plainly. God forbid that we 
should censure those who believe that baptism saves the 
soul, because they adhere to a church which teaches the 
same doctrine. So far they are honest men; and in 
England, wherever else, let them never lack a full tolera- 
tion. Let us oppose their teaching by all scriptural and 
intelligent means, but let us respect their courage in 
plainly giving us their views. I hate their doctrine, but 
I love their honesty ; and as they speak what they believe 
to be true, let them speak it out, and the more clearly the 
better. Out with it, sirs, be it what it may, but do let us 
know what you mean. For my part, I love to stand foot 
to foot with an honest foeman. To open warfare, bold 
and true hearts raise no objections but the ground of 
quarrel ; it is covert enmity which we have most cause to 
fear and best reason to loathe. If men believe baptism 
works regeneration, let them say so, but if they do not 
so believe it in their hearts, and yet subscribe, and yet 
more, get their livings by subscribing to words asserting 
it, let them f.nd congenial associates among men who can 
equivocate anu shuflfle, for honest men will neither ask 
nor accept their friendship. 

We ourselves are not dubious on this point ; w^e protest 



APPENDIX. 303 

that persons are not saved by being baptized. In such an 
audience as this, I am ahiiost ashamed to go into the 
matter, because you surely know better than to be misled. 
Nevertheless, for the good of otliers we will drive at it. 
We hold that persons are not saved by baptism ; for we 
think, first of all, that it seems out of character with the 
spiritual religion which Christ came to teach^ that he should 
make salvation depend upon mere ceremony. Judaism 
might possibly absorb the ceremony by way of type into 
her ordinances essential to eternal life, for it was a relig- 
ion of types and shadows. The false religions of the 
heathen might inculcate salvation by a physical process, 
but Jesus Christ claims for his faith that it is purely 
spiritual, and how could he connect regeneration with a 
peculiar application of water ? I cannot see how it w^ould 
be a spiritual gospel, but I can see how it would be 
mechanical, if I were sent forth to teach that the mere 
dropping of so many drops upon the brow, or even the 
plunging of a person in water, could save the soul. This 
seems to me to be the most mechanical religion now exist- 
ing, and to be on a par with the praying windmills of 
Thibet, or the climbing up and down of Pilate's staircase 
to which Luther subjected himself in the days of his 
darkness. The operation of water baptism does not 
appear even to my faith to touch the point involved in 
the regeneration of the soul. What is the necessary con- 
nection between water and the overcoming of sin? I 
cannot see any connection which can exist betw^een 
sprinkling, or inmiersion, and regeneration, so that the 
one shall necessarily be tied to the other in the absence 
of faith. Used by faith, had God commanded it, mira- 
cles might be wrought ; but without faith or even con- 
sciousness, as in the case of babes, how" can spiritual bene- 
fits be connected necessarily with the sprinkling of water? 
If this be your teaching, that regeneration goes with 
baptism, I say that it looks like the teaching of a spu- 
rious church, which has craftily invented a mechanical 
salvation to deceive ignorant minds, rather than the teach- 
ing of the most profoundly spiritual of all teachers, who 
rebuked Scribes and Pharisees for regarding outward 
rites as more important than inward grace. 



304 APFENDIX. 

But it strikes me that a more forcible argument is, that 
the dogma is not supported hy facts. Are all persons who 
are baptized children of God? Well, let us look at the 
divine family. Let us mark their resemblance to their 
glorious Parent ! Am I untruthful if I say that thousands 
of those who were baptized in their infancy are now in 
our jails? You can ascertain the fact, if you please, by 
application to prison authorities. Do you believe that 
these men, many of whom have been living by plunder, 
felony, burglary, or forgery, are regenerate? If so, the 
Lord deliver us from such regeneration. Are these 
villains members of Christ? If so, Christ has sadly 
altered since the day when he was holy, harmless, un- 
defiled, separate from sinners. Has he really taken bap- 
tized drunkards and harlots to be members of his body ? 
Do you not revolt at the supposition ? It is a well-known 
fact that baptized persons have been hanged. Surely it 
can hardly be right to hang the inheritors of the kingdom 
of heaven ! Our sheriffs have much to answer for when 
they officiate at the execution of the children of God, and 
suspend the members of Christ on the gallows ! What a 
detestable farce is that which is transacted at the open 
grave, when "a dear brother" who has died drunk is 
buried in a " sure and certain hope of the resurrection to 
eternal life," and the prayer that " when we shall depart 
this life we may rest in Christ, as our hope is that this our 
brother doth." He is a regenerate brother, who, having 
defiled the village by constant uncleanness and bestial 
drunkenness, died without a sign of repentance ; and yet 
the professed minister of God solemnly accords him 
funeral rites which are denied to unbaptized innocents, 
and puts the reprobate into the earth in " sure and certain 
hope of the resurrection to eternal life." If old Rome in 
her worst days ever perpetrated a grosser piece of im- 
posture than this, I do not read things aright ; if it does not 
require a Luther to cry down this hypocrisy as much as 
Popery ever did, then I do not even know that twice two 
make four. Do we find — we who baptize on profession of 
faith, and baptize by immersion in a way which is con- 
fessed to be correct, though not allowed by some to be 
absolutely necessary to its validity — do we, who baptize 



APPENDIX. 305 

in the name of the Sacred Trinity as others do, do we find 
that baptism regenerates? We do not. Neither in the 
righteous nor the wielded do we find regeneration wrought 
by baptism. We have never met with one believer, 
however instructed in divine things, who could trace his 
regeneration to his baptism ; and on the other hand, we 
confess it with sorrow, but still with no surprise, that we 
have seen those whom we have ourselves baptized, accord- 
ing to apostolic precedent, go back into the world and 
wander into the foulest sin, and their baptism has scarcely 
been so much as a restraint to them, because they have 
not believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. Facts all show 
that whatever good there may be in baptism, it certainly 
does not make a man ''a member of Christ, the child of 
God, and an inheritor of the kindom of heaven," or else 
many thieves, whoremongers, drunkards, fornicators, and 
murderers are members of Christ, the children of God, 
and inheritors of the kingdom of heaven. Facts, brethren, 
are dead against this popish doctrine ; and facts are stub- 
born things. 

Yet further, I am persuaded that the performance styled 
baptism hy the Prayer Book is not at all likely to regenerate 
and save. How is the thing done ? One is very curious 
to know when one hears of an operation w^hich makes 
men members of Christ, children of God, and inheritors 
of the kingdom of heaven, how the thing is done. It 
must in itself be a holy thing, truthful in all its details, and 
edifying in every portion. Now, we will suppose w^e have 
a company gathered around the water, be it more or less, 
and the process of regeneration is about to be performed. 
We will suppose them all to be godly people. The clergy- 
man ofiiciating is a profound believer in the Lord Jesus, 
and the father and mother are exemplary Christians, and 
the godfathers and godmothers are all gracious persons. 
We will suppose this : it is a supposition fraught with 
charity, but it may be correct. What are these godly 
people supposed to say ? Let us look to the Prayer Book. 
The clergyman is supposed to tell these people, " Ye have 
heard also that our Lord Jesus Christ hath promised in 
his gospel to grant all these things that ye have prayed 
for : which promise he, for his part, will most surely keep 



306 APPENDIX. 

and perform. Wherefore, after this promise made by 
Christ, this infant must also faithfully, for his part, 
promise by you that are his sureties (until he come of 
age to take it upon himself ) that he will renounce the 
devil and all his works, and constantly believe God's 
Holy Word, and obediently keep his commandments." 
This small child is to promise to do this ; or, more truly, 
others are to promise, and even vow that he shall do 
so. 

But we must not break the quotation, and therefore let 
us return to the Book: " I demand, therefore, dost thou, 
in the name of this child, renounce the devil and all his 
works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, with all 
covetous desires of the same, and the carnal desires of the 
flesh, so that thou wilt not follow, nor be led by them? " 
Answer: "I renounce them all." That is to say, in the 
name and behalf of this tender infant about to be baptized, 
these godly people, these enlightened Christian people, 
these who know better, who are not dupes, who know all 
the while that they are promising impossibilities, re- 
nounce on behalf of this child what they find it very hard 
to renounce for themselves, — "all covetous desires of the 
world and the carnal desires of the flesh, so that they will 
not follow nor be led by them." How can they harden 
their faces to utter such a false promise, such a mockery 
of renunciation, before the presence of the Father 
Almighty? Might not angels weep as they hear the 
awful promise uttered ! Then in the presence of High 
Heaven they profess on behalf of this child that he stead- 
fastly believes the creed, when they know, or pretty 
shrewdly judge, that the little creature is not yet a 
steadfast believer in anything, much less in Christ's going 
down to hell. Mark, they do not say merely that the 
babe shall believe the creed, but they affirm that he does ; 
for they answer in the child's name, " All this we stead- 
fastly believe." Not ive steadfastly believe, but 7, the 
little baby here, unconscious of all their professions and 
confessions of faith. In answer to the question, "Wilt 
thou be baptized in this faith? " they reply for the infant, 
"That is my desire." Surely the infant has no desire in 
the matter, or at the least no one has been authorized to 



APPENDIX. 307 

declare any desires on his behalf. But this is not all ; for 
then these godly, intelligent people next promise on behalf 
of the infant that " he shall obediently keep all God's holy 
will and commandments, and walk in the same all the 
days of his life." 

Now, I ask you, dear friends, you who know what true 
religion means, can you walk in all God's holy command- 
ments yourselves ? Dare you make this day a vow on 
your own part, that you would renounce the devil and all 
his works, the pomps and vanities of this wicked world, 
and all the sinful lusts of the flesh ? Dare you, before 
God, make such a promise as that? You desire such 
holiness ; you earnestly strive after it ; but you look for 
it from God's promise, not from your own. If you dare 
make such vows, I doubt your knowledge of your own 
hearts and of the spirituality of God's law. But even if 
you could do this for yourself, would you venture to make 
such a promise for any other person?— for the best-born 
infant on earth? Come, brethren, what say you ? Is not 
your reply ready and plain ? There is not room for two 
opinions among men determined to observe the truth in 
all their ways and words. I can understand a simple, 
ignorant rustic, who has never learned to read, doing all 
this at the command of a priest and under the eye of a 
squire. I can even understand persons doing this when 
the Reformation was in its dawn, and men had newly 
crept out of the darkness of Popery ; but I cannot under- 
stand, gracious, godly people standing at the font to insult 
the All-gracious Father with vows and promises framed 
upon a fiction, and involving practical falsehood. How 
dare intelligent believers in Christ utter words which they 
know in their conscience to be wickedly aside from truth ? 
When I shall be able to understand the process by which 
gracious men so accommodate their consciences, even then 
I shall have a confirmed belief that the God of truth never 
did and never will confirm a spiritual blessing of the 
highest order in connection with the utterance of such 
false promises and untruthful vows. My brethren, does 
it not strike you that declarations so fictitious are not 
likely to be connected with a new birth wrought by the 
Spirit of truth ? 



308 APPENDIX. 

I have not done with this point : I must take anothei 
case, and suppose the sponsors and others to be ungodly . 
and that is no hard supposition, for in many cases, we 
know that godfathers and parents have no more thought 
of religion than that idolatrous hallowed stone around 
which they gather. When these sinners have taken their 
places, what are they about to say ? Why, they are uboul 
to make the solemn vows I have already recounted iii 
your hearing. Totally irreligious they are, but yei they 
promise for the baby what they never did, and never 
thought of doing, for themselves, — they promise on 
behalf of this child, " that he will renounce the devil and 
all his works, and constantly believe God's Holy Word, 
and obediently keep his commandments." My brethren, 
do not think I speak severely here. Really, I think 
there is something here to make mockery for devils. Let 
every honest man lament that ever God's church should 
tolerate such a thing as this, and that there should be 
found gracious people who will feel grieved because I, in 
all kindness of heart, rebuked the atrocity. Unregenerate 
sinners promising for a poor babe that he shall keep all 
God's holy commandments, which they themselves 
wantonly break every day ! How can anything but the 
longsuffering of God endure this? What! not speak 
against it? The very stones in the street mi^ht cry out 
against the infamy of wicked men and women promising 
that another should renounce the devil and all his works, 
while they themselves serve the devil and do his works 
with greediness ! As a climax to all this, I am asked to 
believe that God accepts that wicked promise, and, as the 
result of it, regenerates that child. You cannot believe 
in regeneration by this operation, whether saints or sin- 
ners are the performers. Take them to be godly, then 
they are wrong for doing what their conscience must con- 
demn ; view them as ungodly, and they are wrong for 
promising what they know they cannot perform ; and in 
neither case can God accept such worship, much less 
infallibly append regeneration to such a baptism as this. 

But you will say, " Why do ?/o?« cry out against it?" 
I cry out against it because I believe that baptism does 
not save the soul, and that the preaching of it has a lorong 



APPEND IX. 309 

and evil influence upon men. We meet with persons who, 
when we tell them that they must be born again, assure 
us that they loere born again when they were baptized. 
The number of these persons is increasing, fearfully 
increasing, until all grades of society are misled by this 
belief. How can any stand up in his pulpit and say " Ye 
must be born again " to his congregation, when he has 
already assured them, by his own " unfeigned assent and 
consent" to it, that they are themselves, every one of 
them, born again in baptism. What has he to do with 
them? Why, my dear friends, the gospel then has no 
voice ; they have rammed this ceremony down its throat, 
and it cannot speak to rebuke sin. The man who has 
been baptized or sprinkled, says, " I am saved; I am a 
member of Christ, a child of God, and an inheritor of the 
kingdom of heaven. Who are you, that you should 
rebuke me f Call me to repentance, call me to a new life ? 
What better life can I have ? for I am a member of Christ 
— a part of Christ's body. What ! rebuke me f I am a 
child of God. Cannot you see it in my face ? No matter 
what my walk and conversation is, I am a child of God. 
Moreover, I am an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven. 
It is true, I drink and swear, and all that, but you know 
I am an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven ; for when I 
die, though I live in constant sin, you will put me in 
the grave, and tell everybody that I died " in sure and 
certain hope of the resurrection to eternal life." 

Here let me bring in another point. It is a most fear- 
ful fact, that, in no age since the Reformation^ has Popery 
made such fearful strides in England as during the last few 
years. I had comfortably believed that Popery was only 
feeding itself upon foreign subscriptions, upon a few titled 
perverts, and imported monks and nuns. I dreamed that 
its progress was not real. In fact, I have often smiled at 
the alarm of many of my brethren at the progress of 
Popery. But, my dear friends, we have been mistaken, 
grievously mistaken. This great city — London — is now 
covered with a network of monks and priests and sisters 
of mercy, and the conversions made are not by ones or 
twos, but by scores, till England is being regarded as the 
most hopeful spot for Ttomisli missionary enterprise in 



310 APPENDIX. 

the whole world ; and at the present moment there is not 
a mission which is succeeding to anything like the extent 
which the English mission is. I covet not their money, 
I despise their sophistries, but I marvel at the way in 
which they gain their funds for the erection of their 
ecclesiastical buildings. It really is an alarming matter 
to see so many of our countrymen going off to that super- 
stition which as a nation we once rejected, and which it 
was supposed we should never again receive. Popery is 
making advances such as you would never believe, 
though a spectator should tell it to you. Close to your 
very doors, perhaps even in your own houses, you may 
have evidence ere long of what a march Romanism is 
making. And to w^hat is it to be ascribed? I say, with 
every ground of probability, that there is no marvel that 
Popery should increase when you have two things to 
make it grow: first of all, the falsehood of those who pro- 
fess a faith which they do not believe, which is quite 
contrary to the honesty of the Romanist, who does 
through evil report and good report hold his faith ; and 
then you have secondly, this form of error known as bap- 
tismal regeneration, commonly called Puseyism, which 
is not only Puseyism, but Church-of-Englandism, because 
it is in the Prayer-book, as plainly as Avords can express 
it, — you have this baptismal regeneration, preparing 
stepping-stones to make it easy for men to go to Rome. 
In one of our courts of legislature, ,but recently, the Lord 
Chief Justice showed his superstition, by speaking of 
" the risk of the calamity of children dying unbaptized ! " 
Among Dissenters you see a veneration for structures, a 
modified belief in the sacredness of places, which is all 
idolatry ; for to believe in the sacredness of anything but 
of God and of his own word, is to idolize, whether it is 
to believe in the sacredness of the men, the priests, or in 
the sacredness of the bricks and mortar, or of the fine 
linen, or what not, what you may use in the worship of 
God. I see this coming up everywhere — a belief in 
ceremony, a resting in ceremony, a veneration for altars, 
fonts, and churches, — a veneration so profound that we 
must not venture upon a remark, or straightway of sin- 
ners we are chief. Here is the essence and soul of Popery, 



APPENDIX. 311 

peeping up under the garb of a decent respect for sacred 
things. It is impossible but that the Church of Rome 
must spread, when we wlio are the watchdogs of the fold 
are silent, and others are gently and smoothly turfing the 
road, and making it as soft and smooth as possible, that 
converts may travel down to the nethermost hell of 
Popery. We want John Knox back again. Do not talk 
to me of mild and gentle men, of soft manners and 
squeamish words : we want the fiery Knox ; and even 
though his vehemence should " ding our pulpits into 
blads," it were well if he did but rouse our hearts to 
action. We want Luther, to tell men the truth unmis- 
takably, in homely phrase. The velvet has got into our 
ministers' mouths of late, but we must unrobe ourselves 
of soft raiment, and truth must be spoken, and nothing 
but truth; for of all lies which have dragged millions 
down to hell, I look upon this as being one of the most 
atrocious, — that in a Protestant Church there should be 
found those who swear that baptism saves the soul. 
Call a man a Baptist, or a Presbyterian, or a Dissenter, or 
a Churchman, — that is nothing to me : if he says that 
baptism saves the soul, out upon him, out upon him : he 
states what God never taught, what the Bible never laid 
down, and what ought never to be maintained by men 
who profess that the Bible, and the whole Bible, is the 
religion of Protestants. 

I have spoken thus much, and there will be some who 
will say, spoken thus much bitterly. Very w^ell; be 
it so. Physic is often bitter, but it shall work well, and 
the physician is not bitter because his medicine is so ; or 
if he be accounted so, it will not matter, so long as the 
patient is cured. At all events, it is no business of the 
patient whether the physician is bitter or not : his business 
is with his own soul's health. There is the truth, and I 
have told it to you ; and if there should be one among you, 
or if there should be one among the readers of this sermon, 
who is resting on baptism, or resting upon ceremonies of 
any sort, I do beseech 3"ou, shake off" this venomous faith 
into the fire as Paul did the viper which fastened on his 
hand. I pray you do not rest on baptism. Believe on 
the Lord Jesus Christ. That alone saves. 



312 APFEXBTX. 

" No outward form can make you clean, 
The leprosy lies deep within." 

I do beseech you to remember that you must have a new 
heart and a right spirit, and baptism cannot give you 
these. Yo.i must turn from your sins and follow after 
Christ ; you must have such a faith as shall make your 
life holy and your speech devout, or else you have not 
the faith of God's elect, and into God's kingdom you 
shall never come. I pray you never rest upon this 
wretched and rotten foundation, this deceitful invention 
of antichrist. Oh ! may God save you from it, and bring 
you to seek the true rock of refuge for weary souls. 

In the second place, we say that faith is the indis- 
pensable REQUISITE TO SALVATION. " He that believeth 
and is baptized shall be saved ; he that believeth not shall be 
damned." Faith is the one indispensable requisite to sal- 
vation. This faith is the gift of God. It is the work of 
the Holy Spirit. Some men believe not on Jesus ; they 
believe not, because they are not of Christ's sheep, as he 
himself said unto them. But his sheep hear his voice : he 
knows them and they follow him; he gives to them 
eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any 
pluck them out of his hand. What is this believing ?, Be- 
lieving consists in two things. First there is an accred- 
iting of the testimony of God concerning his Son. God 
tells you that his Son came into the world and was made 
flesh ; that he lived on earth for men's sake; that having 
spent his life in holiness he was offered up a propitiation 
for sin ; that upon the cross he there and then made ex- 
piation — so made expiation for the sins of the world that 
" whosoever believeth in him shall not perish, but have 
everlasting life." If you would be saved, you must 
accredit this testimony which God gives concerning his 
own Son. Having received his testimony, the next thing 
is to confide in it. Indeed, here lies, I think, the essence 
of saving faith, to rest yourself for eternal salvation upon 
the atonement and the righteousness of Jesus Christ, to 
have done once for all with all reliance upon feelings or 
upon doings, and to trust in Jesus Christ and in what he 
did for your salvation. 

This is faith, receiving the truth of Christ : first know- 



APPENDIX. 313 

ing it to be true, and then acting upon that belief. Such a 
faith as this — such real faith as this — makes the man hence- 
forth hate sin. How can lie love the thing which made the 
Saviour bleed? It makes him live in holiness. How can 
he but seek to honor that God who hiis loved him so much 
as to give his Son to die for him ? This faith is spiritual 
in its nature and effects ; it operates upon the entire man ; 
it changes his heart, enlightens his judgment, and sub- 
dues his will ; it subjects him to God's supremacy, and 
makes him receive God's Word as a little child ; it sanc- 
tifies his intellect, and makes him willing to be taught 
God's Word; it cleanses within; it makes clean the 
inside of the cup and platter, and it beautifies without ; it 
makes clean the exterior conduct and the inner motive, 
so that the man, if his faith be true and real, becomes 
henceforth another man. 

Now that such faith as this should save the soul, is, I 
believe, reasonable ; yea, more, it is certain, for we have 
seen men saved by it in this very houso of praj^er. We have 
seen the harlot lifted out of the Stygian ditch of her sin, 
and made an honest woman ; we have seen the thief re- 
claimed ; we have known the drunkard, in hundreds of 
instances, to be sobered ; we have observed faith to work 
such a change, tliat all the neighbors who have seen it 
have gazed and admired, even though they hated it ; we 
have seen faith deliver men in the hour of temptation, 
and help them to consecrate themselves and their substance 
to God ; we have seen deeds of heroic consecration to God 
and displays of witness-bearing against the common cur- 
rent of the times, which have proved to us that faith does 
affect the man, does save the soul. My hearers, if you 
would be saved you must believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. 
Let me urge you with all my heart to look nowhere but 
to Christ crucified for your salvation. Oh ! if you rest 
upon any ceremony, though it be not baptism — if you rest 
upon any other than Jesus Christ — you must perish, as 
surely as this book is true. I pray you believe not every 
spirit, but though I, or an angel from heaven, preach any 
other doctrine than this, let him be accursed ; for this, and 
this alone, is the soul-saving truth which shall regenerate 
the w^orld— " He that believeth and is baptized shall be 



314 APPENDIX. 

saved." Away from wax candles, and millinery of 
Puseyism ! away from all the gorgeous pomp of Popery ! 
away from tiie fonts of Church-of-Englandism ! We bid 
you turn your eyes to that naked cross, where hangs as a 
bleeding man the Son of God. 

" None but Jesus, none but Jesus 
Can do helpless sinners good." 

There is life in a look at the Crucified ; there is life at this 
moment for you. I would plead with you, lay hold on 
Jesus Christ ! This is the foundation : build on it ! This 
is the rock of refuge : fly to it ! I pray you fly to it now. 
Life is short : time speeds with eagle's wing. Swift as the 
dove pursued by the hawk, fly, fly, poor sinner, to God's 
dear Son : now touch the hem of his garment ; now look 
into that dear face, once marred with sorrows for you ; 
look into those eyes once shedding tears for you. Trust 
him, and if you find him false, then you must perish ; but 
false you never will find him while this word standeth 
true, " He that belie veth and is baptized shall be saved ; 
he that believeth not shall be damned." God give us this 
vital, essential faith, without which thiTe is no salvation. 
So Christ declares, and so it must be. 

But now to close, there are some who say, "Ah!, but 
baptism is in the text ; where do you put that ? " 

The baptism in the text is one evidently con- 
nected WITH FAITH. "He that believeth and is bap- 
tized shall be saved." It strikes me>^ there is no supposi- 
tion here that anybody would be baptized who did not 
believe; or if there be such a supposition, it is very 
clearly laid down that his baptism will be of no use to 
him, for he will be damned, baptized or not, unless he 
believes. The baptism of the text seems to me, my 
brethren, — if you differ from me I am sorry for it, but I 
must hold my opinion, and out with it, — it seems to me 
that baptism is connected with, nay, directly follows 
belief. I would not insist too much upon the order of the 
words ; but, for other reasons, I think that baptism should 
follow believing. At any rate, it effectually avoids the 
error we have been combating. A man who knows that 
he is saved by believing in Christ does not, when he is 
baptized, lift his baptism into a saving ordinance. In 



APPENDIX. 315 

fact, he is the very best protester against tijat mistake, 
because he holds that he has no right to be baptized until 
he is saved. He bears a testimony against baptismal re- 
generation in his being baptized as professedly an already 
regenerate person. 

Brethren, the baptism here meant is a baptism con- 
nected with faith, and to this baptism I will admit there 
is very much ascribed in Scripture. Into that question I 
am not going ; but I do find some very remarkable pas- 
sages in which baptism is spoken of very strongly. I find 
this : " Arise, and be baptized, and wash away thy sins, 
calling on the name of the Lord." I find as much as this 
elsewhere. I know that believers' baptism itself does not 
wash away sin, yet it is so the outward sign and emblem 
of it to the believer, that the thing visible may be de- 
scribed as the thing signified. Just as our Saviour said : 
" This is my body," when it was not his body, but bread ; 
yet, inasmuch as it represented his body, it was fair and 
right according to the usage of language to say, "Take, 
eat, this is my body." And so, inasmuch as baptism to 
the believer representeth the washing of sin — it may be 
called the washing of sin ; not that it is so, but that it is 
to saved souls the outward symbol and representation of 
what is done by the power of the Holy Spirit in the man 
who believes in Christ. 

What connection has this baptism with faith? I think 
it has just this, baptism is the avowal of faith. The man 
was Christ's soldier, but now in baptism he puts on his 
regimentals. The man believed in Christ, but his faith 
remained between God and his own soul. In baptism he 
says to the baptizer, " I believe in Jesus Christ ; " he says 
to the church, " I unite with you as a believer in the com- 
mon truths of Christianity;" he saith to the onlooker, 
"Whatever you may do, as for me, I will serve the 
Lord." It is the avow^al of his faith. 

Next, we think baptism is also to the believer a testi- 
7710)71/ of his faith ; he does in baptism tell the world what he 
believes. " I am about," saith he, " to be buried in water. 
I believe that the Son of God was metaphorically baptized 
in suffering; I believe he was literally dead and buried." 
To rise again out of the water sets forth to all men that 



316 . APPENDIX. 

he believes in the resurrection of Christ. There is a show- 
ing forth in the Lord's Supper of Christ's death, and there 
is a showing forth in baptism of Christ's burial and resur- 
rection. It is a type, a sign, a symbol, a mirror to the 
world, — a looking-glass, in which religion is as it were 
reflected. We say to the onlooker, when he asks what is 
the meaning of this ordinance, "We mean to set forth 
our faith that Christ was buried, and that he rose again 
from the dead, and we avow this death and resurrection 
to be the ground of our trust." 

Again, baptism is also FaitN s taking her proper place. 
It is, or should be, one of her first acts of obedience. 
Reason looks at baptism, and says, "Perhaps there is 
nothing in it ; it cannot do me any good." " True," says 
Faith, " and therefore I will observe it. If it did me some 
good, my selfishness would make me do it ; but inasmuch 
as to my sense there is no good in it, since I am bidden 
by my Lord thus to fulfill all righteousness, it is my first 
public declaration that a thing which looks to be unreas- 
onable and seems to be unprofitable, being commanded 
by God, is law to me. If my Master had told me to pick 
up six stones and lay them in a row I would do it, with- 
out demanding of him, 'What good will it do?' ,Cai 
bo)%o ? is no fit question for soldiers of Jesus. The very 
simplicity and apparent uselessness of the ordinance 
should make the believer say, ' Therefore I do it because 
it becomes the better test to me of my obedience to my 
Master.' " Baptism is commanded, and faith obeys be- 
cause it is commanded, and thus takes her proper place. 

Once more, baptism is a refreshinent to faith. While we 
are made up of body and soul as we are, w^e shall need 
some means by which the body shall sometimes be stirred 
up to CO- work with the soul. In the Lord's Supper my 
faith is assisted by the outward and visible sign. In the 
bread and in the wine I see no superstitious mystery : I 
see nothing but bread and wine ; but in that bread and 
wine I do see to my faith an assistant. Through the 
sign my faith sees the thing signified. So in baptism 
there is no mysterious efficacy in the baptistery or in the 
water. We attach no reverence to the one or to the 
other, but we do see in the water and in the baptisni 



APPENDIX. 317 

such assistance as brings home to our faith most manifestly 
our being buried witli Christ, and our rising again in 
newness of life with him. Explain baptism thus, dear 
friends, and there is no fear of Popery rising out of it. 
Explain it thus, and we cannot suppose any soul will be 
led to trust to it ; but it takes its proper place among the 
ordinances of God's house. To lift it up in the other way, 
and say men are saved by it — ah ! my friends, how much 
of mischief that one falsehood has done and may do, 
eternity alone will disclose. Would to God another 
George Fox would spring up, in all his quaint simplicity 
and rude honesty, to rebuke the idol- worship of this age ; 
to rail at their holy bricks and mortar, holy lecturns, holy 
altars, holy surplices, right reverend fathers, and I know 
not what. These things are not holy. God is holy ; his 
truth is holy : holiness belongs not to the carnal and the 
material, but to the spiritual. Oh, that a trumpet tongue 
would cry out against the superstition of the age ! Oh, my 
beloved friends, the comrades of my struggles and wit- 
nesses, cling to the salvation of faith, and abhor the sal- 
vation of priests ! The time is come when there shall be 
no more truce or parley between God's servants and time- 
servers. The time is come when those who follow God 
must follow God, and those who try to trim and dress 
themselves and find a way which is pleasing to the flesh 
and gentle to carnal desires, must go their way. Oh, for 
a truly reformed church in England, and a godly race to 
maintain it! The world's future depends on it under 
God ; for in proportion as truth is marred at home, truth 
is maimed abroad. Out of any system which teaches sal- 
vation by baptism must spring infidelity, an infidelity 
which the false church already seems willing to nourish 
and foster beneath her wing. God save this favored land 
from the brood of her own established religion. Brethren, 
stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ has made you 
free, and be not afraid of any sudden fear nor calamity 
when it cometh ; for he who trusteth to the Lord, mercy 
shall compass him about, and he who is faithful to God and 
to Christ shall hear it said at the last, " Well done, good 
and faithful servant : enter thou into the joy of thy 
Lord." May the Lord bless this word, for Christ's sake. 



